THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


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Kenneth  Maogovfan 


'Books  by  'Brander  Matthews 

BIOGRAPHIES 
Shakspere  as  a  Playwright 
Moliere,  His  Life  and  His  Works 


ESSAYS  AND  CRITICISMS 
French  Dramatists  of  the  19th  Century 
Pen  and  Ink,  Essays  on  subjects  of  more 

or  less  importance 
Aspects  of  Fiction,  and  other  Essays 
The  Historical  Novel,  and  other  Essays 
Parts  of  Speech,  Essays  on  English 
The  Development  of  the  Drama 
Inquiries  and  Opinions 
The  American  of  the  Future,  and  other 

Essays 
Gateways  to  Literature,  and  other  Essays 
On  Acting 
A  Book  About  the  Theater 


A  BOOK 
ABOUT  THE  THEATER 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/bookabouttheaterOOmattiala 


LE    15ALLET    DE    LA    HEINE 


A    FRENCH    COURT    BALLET    IN 

THE   EAIILV   SEVENTEENTH 

CENTURY 


A  BOOK 
ABOUT  THE  THEATER 


BY 


BRANDER  MATTHEWS 

FBOFESSOB    OF    DSAUATIC    IlTEBArDRB   IN    COLUUBIA    UNIYEBSITT;     UEMBEB 

or  TH£  AUBBiCAS  ACAOEair  or  abts  aud  lettkbs 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1916 


COPTBIOHT,  1916,  BT 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  October.  1916 


College 
Library 

pH 


TO  AUGUSTUS  THOMAS 

My  Deak  Augustus: 

Let  me  begin  by  confessing  my  regret  that  I  cannot 
overhear  your  first  remark  when  you  receive  this  sheaf 
of  essays,  many  of  which  are  devoted  to  the  subordi- 
nate subdivisions  of  the  art  of  the  stage.  As  it  is, 
I  can  only  imagine  your  surprise  at  discovering  that 
this  book,  which  contains  papers  dealing  with  certain 
aspects  of  the  theater  rarely  considered  to  be  worthy 
of  criticism,  is  signed  by  the  occupant  of  the  earliest 
chair  to  be  established  in  any  American  university 
specifically  for  the  study  of  dramatic  literature.  I 
fancy  I  can  hear  the  expression  of  your  wonder  that 
a  sexagenarian  professor  should  turn  aside  from  his 
austere  analysis  of  the  genius  of  Sophocles  and  of 
Shakspere,  of  MoHere  and  of  Ibsen,  to  discuss  the 
minor  arts  of  the  dancer  and  the  acrobat,  to  chatter 
about  the  conjurer  and  the  negro  minstrel,  to  consider 
the  principles  of  pantomime  and  the  development  of 
scene-painting.  But  I  am  emboldened  to  hope  that 
your  surprise  will  be  only  momentary,  and  that  you 
will  be  moved  to  acknowledge  that  perhaps  there  may 
be  some  advantage  to  be  derived  from  these  devia- 
tions into  the  by-paths  of  stage  history. 

You  are  rather  multifarious  yourself;  "like  Cerbe- 
rus, you  are  three  gentlemen  at  once";  you  have  been 


TO    AUGUSTUS    THOMAS 

a  reporter,  you  have  published  a  novel,  you  have 
painted  pictures,  you  have  delivered  addresses — ^and 
you  write  plays,  too.  I  think  that  you,  at  least,  will 
readily  understand  how  a  student  of  the  stage  may 
like  to  stray  now  and  again  from  the  main  road  and  to 
ramble  away  from  the  lofty  temple  of  dramatic  art  to 
loiter  for  a  Uttle  while  in  one  or  another  of  its  lesser 
chapels.  And  you,  again,  wiU  appreciate  my  convic- 
tion that  these  loiterings  and  these  strollings  may  be 
as  profitable  as  that  casual  browsing  about  in  a  Hbrary 
which  is  likely  to  enrich  our  memories  with  not  a  Httle 
interesting  information  that  we  might  never  have 
captured  had  we  adhered  to  a  rigorous  and  rigid  course 
of  study.  You  will  see  what  I  mean  when  I  declare 
my  behef  that  I  have  come  back  from  these  wander- 
ings with  an  increased  imderstanding  of  the  theory  of 
the  theater,  and  with  an  enlarged  acquaintance  with 
its  manifold  manifestations. 

Perhaps  I  ought  to  explain,  furthermore,  that  these 
excursions  into  the  pm-heus  of  the  playhouse  began 
long,  long  ago.  I  gave  a  Pimch  and  Judy  show  before 
I  was  sixteen;  I  performed  experiipents  in  magic,  I 
blacked  up  as  Tambo,  I  whitened  myseK  as  Clown,  I 
played  the  low-comedy  part  in  a  farce,  and  I  attempted 
the  flying  trapeze  before  I  was  twenty;  and  I  was 
not  encouraged  by  the  result  of  these  early  experiences 
to  repeat  any  of  the  experiments  after  I  came  of  age. 
I  think  it  was  as  a  spinner  of  hats  and  as  the  under- 
man  of  a  "brothers'  act"  that  I  came  nearest  to  suc- 
cess; at  least  I  infer  this  from  the  fact — may  I  mention 

vi 


TO    AUGUSTUS    THOMAS 

it  without  seeming  to  boast  ? — ^that  with  my  partners 
in  this  brothers'  act,  I  was  asked  if  I  would  care  to 
accept  an  engagement  with  a  circus  for  the  summer. 
As  to  the  merits  of  the  other  efforts  I  need  say  nothing 
now;  the  rest  is  silence.  When  the  cynic  declared 
that  the  critics  were  those  who  had  failed  in  Uterature 
and  art,  he  overstated  his  case,  as  is  the  custom  of 
cynics.  But  it  is  an  indisputable  advantage  for  any 
critic  to  have  adventured  himself  in  the  practise  of  the 
art  to  the  discussion  of  which  he  is  to  devote  himself; 
he  may  have  failed,  or  at  least  he  may  not  have  suc- 
ceeded as  he  could  wish;  but  he  ought  to  have  gained 
a  firmer  grasp  on  the  principles  of  the  art  than  he  would 
have  had  if  he  had  never  risked  himself  in  the  vain 
effort. 

With  this  brief  word  of  personal  explanation  I  step 
down  from  the  platform  of  the  preface  to  let  these 
various  essays  speak  for  themselves.  If  they  have 
any  message  of  any  value,  I  feel  assured  in  advance 
that  your  friendly  ear  will  be  the  first  to  interpret  it. 
And  I  remain. 

Ever  yours, 

Brander  Matthews. 


Columbia  Univbhsitt, 

IN   TH£  CiTT   OF   NBW   YoBK. 


Vll 


CONTENTS 

PAGD 

I.    The  Show  Business 1 

II.    The  Limitations  of  the  Stage      ....  17 

III.  A  Moral  from  a  Toy  Theater     ....  37 

IV.  Why  Five  Acts? 55 

V.    Dramatic  Collaboration 77 

VI.    The  Dramatization  of  Novels  and  the  Nov- 

elization  of  Plays 93 

VII.    Women  Dramatists Ill 

VIII.    The  Evolution  of  Scene-Painting     .     .     .  127 

IX.    The  Book  of  the  Opera 153 

X.    The  Poetry  op  the  Dance 169 

XI.    The  Principles  of  Pantomime       ....  185 

XII.    The  Ideal  of  the  Acrobat 201 

XIII.  The  Decline  and  Fall  of  Negro-Minstrelsy  217 

XIV.  The  Utility  of  the  Variety-Show     .     .     .  235 

XV.    The  Method  of  Modern  Magic    ....  251 

ix 


CONTENTS 

VAOB 

XVI.    The   Lamentable  Tragedy   of  Punch  and 

Judy 271 

XVII.    The  Puppet-Play,  Past  and  Present      .     .     287 

XVIII.    Shadow-Pantomime,  with  All  the  Modern 

Improvements 303 

XIX.    The  Problem  of  Dramatic  Criticism      .     .    319 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Le  ballet  de  la  reine Frontispiece 

FACINQ  FAaa 

Upper  half  of  Plate  No.  1,  the  'Miller  and  His  Men'  ....  40 

A  group  of  the  principal  characters  from  Pollock's  juvenile 

drama,  the  'Miller  and  His  Men' 42 

Explosion  of  the  mill.    A  back  drop  in  the  'Miller  and  His  Men'  46 

Plate  No.  7,  the  'Miller  and  His  Men' 48 

Lower  half  of  Plate  No.  5,  the  'Miller  and  His  Men'  ....  62 

The  Roman  Theater  at  Orange 134 

The  multiple  set  of  the  French  medieval  stage 134 

The  set  of  the  Italian  comedy  of  masks 134 

An  outdoor  entertainment  in  the  gardens  of  the  Pitti  Palace  in 

Florence  in  the  early  sixteenth  century 136 

The  set  for  the  opera  of  'Pers^e'  (as  performed  at  the  Op6ra  in 

Paris  in  the  seventeenth  century) 140 

A  prison  (designed  by  Bibiena  in  Italy  in  the  eighteenth  century)  140 

The  screen  scene  of  the  'School  for  Scandal'  at  Dnuy  Lane  in 

1778 144 

A  landscape  set 146 

A  set  for  the  opera  of  'Robert  le  Diable' 146 

The  set  of  the  last  act  of  the  'Garden  of  Allah' 148 

A  set  for 'Medea' 148 

zi 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAOB 

The  set  of  *(Edipe-Roi'  (at  the  Theatre  Fran9ai3) 150 

The  set  of  the 'Return  of  Peter  Grimm' 150 

Scenes  from  Punch  and  Judy 274 

Scenes  from  Punch  and  Judy  (continued) 276 

Roman  puppets.    Greek  and  Roman  puppets.    Puppet  of  Java  .  290 

A  Sicilian  marionette  show 292 

A  Belgian  pupp)et.    A  Chinese  puppet  theater.    Puppet  figure 

representing  the  younger  Coquelin 294 

Puppets  in  Burma 296 

The  puppet  play  of  Master  Peter  (Italian) 296 

A  Neapolitan  Punchinella 300 

The  broken  bridge.    Plan  showing  the  construction  of  a  shadow- 
picture  theater.    A  Himgarian  dancer  (a  shadow  picture)     .  308 

Shadow  Pictures.    The  return  from  the  Bois  de  Boulogne.    The 

ballet.    A  regiment  of  French  soldiers 310 

Shadow  Picture.    The  Sphinx  I:  Pharaoh  passing  in  triumph     .  312 

Shadow  Picture.    The  Sphinx  II:  Moses  leading  his  people  out 

of  Egypt 314 

Shadow  Picture.    The  Sphinx  III :  Roman  warriors  in  Egypt     .  316 

Shadow  Picture.    The  Sphinx  IV:  The  British  troops  to-day      .  318 


xu 


I 

THE  SHOW  BUSINESS 


THE  SHOW  BUSINESS 

I 

At  an  interesting  moment  in  DisraeK's  picturesque 
career  in  British  politics  he  indulged  in  one  of  his  strik- 
ingly spectacular  effects,  in  accord  with  his  character- 
istic method  of  boldly  startling  the  somewhat  sluggish 
imagination  of  his  insular  countr3rmen;  and  in  the  next 
week's  issue  of  Punch  there  was  a  cartoon  by  Tenniel 
reflecting  the  general  opinion  in  regard  to  his  theat- 
rical audacity.  He  was  represented  as  Artemus  Ward, 
frankly  confessing  that  "I  have  no  principles;  I'm  in 
the  show  business." 

The  cartoon  was  good-humored  enough,  as  Punches 
cartoons  usually  are;  but  it  was  not  exactly  compli- 
mentary. It  was  intended  to  voice  the  vague  distrust 
felt  by  the  British  people  toward  a  leader  who  did  not 
scrupulously  avoid  every  possible  opportunity  to  be 
dramatic.  And  yet  every  statesman  who  was  himself 
possessed  of  constructive  imagination,  and  who  was 
therefore  anxious  to  stir  the  imaginations  of  those  he 
was  leading,  has  laid  himself  open  to  the  same  charge. 
Bm-ke,  for  one,  was  accused  of  being  frankly  theatri- 
cal; and  Napoleon,  the  child  of  that  French  Revolution 
which  Burke  combated  with  undying  vigor,  never  hesi- 
tated to  employ  kindred  devices.  When  Napoleon 
took  the  Imperial  Crown  from  the  hands  of  the  Pope 

3 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

to  place  it  on  his  own  head,  and  when  Burke  cast  the 
daggers  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Commons,  they 
were  both  proving  that  they  were  in  the  show  busi- 
ness. So  was  JuHus  Csesar  when  he  thrice  thrust  aside 
the  kingly  crown;  and  so  was  Frederick  on  more  than 
one  occasion.  Even  Luther  did  not  shrink  from  the 
spectacular  if  that  could  serve  his  purpose,  as  when  he 
nailed  his  theses  to  the  door  of  the  church. 

If  the  statesmen  have  now  and  again  acted  as  tho 
they  were  in  the  show  business,  we  need  not  be  sur- 
prised to  discover  that  the  dramatists  have  done  it 
even  more  often,  in  accord  with  their  more  intimate 
relation  to  the  theater.  No  one  would  deny  that 
Sardou  and  Boucicault  were  showmen,  with  a  perfect 
mastery  of  every  trick  of  the  showman's  trade.  But 
this  is  almost  equally  true  of  the  supreme  leaders 
of  dramatic  art,  Sophocles,  Shakspere,  and  Moli^re. 
The  great  Greek,  the  great  Englishman,  and  the  great 
Frenchman,  however  much  they  might  differ  in  their 
aims  and  in  their  accomplishments,  were  alike  in  the 
avidity  with  which  they  availed  themselves  of  every 
spectacular  device  possible  to  their  respective  theaters. 
The  opening  passage  of  'CEdipus  the  King,'  when  the 
chorus  appeals  to  the  sovran  to  remove  the  curse  that 
hangs  over  the  city,  is  as  potent  on  the  eye  as  on  the 
ear.  The  witches  and  the  ghost  in  'Macbeth,'  the 
single  combats  and  the  bloody  battles  that  embellish 
many  of  Shakspere's  plays  are  utiHzations  of  the  spec- 
tacular possibilities  existing  in  that  Elizabethan  play- 
house, which  has  seemed  to  some  historians  of  the 

4 


THE    SHOW    BUSINESS 

drama  to  be  necessarily  bare  of  all  appeal  to  the  senses. 
And  in  his  'Amphitryon'  Moliere  has  a  succession  of 
purely  mechanical  effects  (a  god  riding  upon  an  eagle, 
for  example,  and  descending  from  the  sky)  which  are 
anticipations  of  the  more  elaborate  and  complicated 
transformation  scenes  of  the  'Black  Crook'  and  the 
*  White  Fawn.' 

At  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  two  mas- 
ters of  the  stage  were  Ibsen  and  Wagner,  and  both  of 
them  were  in  the  show  business — ^Wagner  more  openly 
and  more  frequently  than  Ibsen.  Yet  the  stem  Scan- 
dinavian did  not  disdain  to  employ  an  avalanch  in 
'When  We  Dead  Awaken,'  and  to  introduce  a  highly 
pictorial  shawl  dance  for  the  heroine  of  his  'Doll's 
House.'  As  for  Wagner,  he  was  incessant  in  his  search 
for  the  spectacular,  insisting  that  the  music-drama 
was  the  "art-work  of  the  future,"  since  the  Ubrettist- 
composer  could  call  to  his  aid  all  the  other  arts,  and 
could  make  these  arts  contribute  to  the  total  effect 
of  the  opera.  He  conformed  his  practise  to  his  princi- 
ples, and  as  a  result  there  is  scarcely  any  one  of  his 
music-dramas  which  is  not  enriched  by  a  most  elaborate 
scenic  accompaniment.  The  forging  of  the  sword,  the 
ride  of  the  Valkyries,  the  swimming  of  the  singing 
Rhinemaidens,  are  only  a  few  of  the  novel  and  start- 
ling effects  which  he  introduced  into  his  operas;  and 
in  his  last  work,  'Parsival,'  the  purely  spectacular  ele- 
ment is  at  least  as  ample  and  as  varied  as  any  that 
can  be  found  in  a  Parisian  fairy-play  or  in  a  London 
Christmas  pantomime.    And  what  is  the  'Blue  Bird' 

5 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

of  M.  Maeterlinck,  the  philosopher-poet,  who  is  also 
a  playwright,  but  a  fairy-play  on  the  model  of  those 
long  popular  in  Paris,  the  'Pied  de  Mouton,'  and  the 
'Biche  au  Bois'?  It  has  a  meaning  and  a  purpose 
lacking  in  its  emptier  predecessors;  but  its  method  is 
the  same  as  that  of  the  uninspired  manufacturers  of 
these  spectacular  pieces.  ^ 

II 

It  is  not  without  significance  that  our  newspapers, 
which  have  a  keen  understanding  of  the  pubUc  taste, 
are  in  the  habit  of  commenting  upon  entertainments 
of  the  most  diverse  nature  under  the  general  heading 
of  "Amusements."  It  matters  not  whether  this  en- 
tertainment is  proffered  by  Bamum  and  Bailey,  or  by 
Weber  and  Fields,  by  Sophocles  or  by  Ibsen,  by  Shak- 
spere  or  by  Moliere,  by  Wagner  or  by  Gilbert  and  Sulli- 
van, it  is  grouped  with  the  rest  of  the  amusements. 
And  this  is  not  so  illogical  as  it  may  seem,  since  the 
primary  purpose  of  all  the  arts  is  to  entertain,  even  if 
every  art  has  also  to  achieve  its  own  secondary  aim. 
Some  of  these  entertainments  make  their  appeal  to 
the  intellect,  some  to  the  emotions,  and  some  only  to 
the  nerves,  to  our  relish  for  sheer  excitement  and  for 
brute  sensation;  but  each  of  them  in  its  own  way 
seeks,  first  of  all,  to  entertain.  They  are,  every  one 
of  them,  to  be  included  in  the  show  business. 

This  is  a  point  of  view  which  is  rarely  taken  by  those 
who  are  accustomed  to  consider  the  drama  only  in  its 

6 


THE    SHOW    BUSINESS 

literary  aspects,  and  who  like  to  think  of  the  dramatic 
poet  as  a  remote  and  secluded  artist,  scornful  of  all  ad- 
ventitious assistance,  seeking  to  express  his  own  vision 
of  the  universe,  and  intent  chiefly,  if  not  solely,  on 
portraying  the  human  soul.  And  yet  this  point  of 
view  needs  to  be  taken  by  every  one  who  wishes  to 
understand  the  drama  as  an  art,  for  the  drama  is  inex- 
tricably bound  up  with  the  show  business,  and  to 
separate  the  two  is  simply  impossible.  The  theater  is 
almost  infinitely  various,  and  the  different  kinds  of 
entertainment  possible  in  it  cannot  be  sharply  distin- 
guished, since  they  shade  into  each  other  by  almost 
imperceptible  gradations.  Only  now  and  again  can  we 
seize  a  specimen  that  completely  conforms  to  any  one 
of  the  several  types  into  which  we  theoretically  classify 
the  multiple  manifestations  of  the  drama. 

Buffalo  Bill's  Wild  West  and  Bamum  and  Bailey's 
Greatest  Show  on  Earth  might  seem,  at  first  sight,  to 
stand  absolutely  outside  the  theater.  But  it  is  impos- 
sible not  to  perceive  the  close  kinship  between  the 
program  of  the  Barnum  and  Bailey  show  and  the  pro- 
gram of  the  New  York  Hippodrome,  since  they  have 
the  circus  in  common.  At  the  Hippodrome,  however, 
we  have  at  least  a  rudimentary  play  with  actual  dia- 
log and  with  abundant  songs  and  dances  executed  by 
a  charging  squadron  of  chorus-girls;  and  in  this  aspect 
its  spectacle  is  curiously  similar  to  the  nondescript 
medley  which  is  popularly  designated  as  a  "summer 
song-show."  Now,  the  summer  song-show  is  first 
cousin  to  the  so-called  American  "comic  opera" — so 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

different  from  the  French  opera  comique.  Even  if  it  has 
now  fallen  upon  evil  days,  this  American  comic  opera 
is  a  younger  sister  of  the  sparkling  ballad-opera  of  Gil- 
bert and  Sullivan,  and  of  the  exhilarating  opera  houffe 
of  Offenbach,  with  its  libretto  by  Meilhac  and  Hal4vy. 
We  cannot  fail  to  perceive  that  the  Hbrettos  of  Gil- 
bert and  of  Meilhac  and  Halevy  are  admirable  in  them- 
selves, that  they  would  please  even  without  the  music 
of  SuUivan  and  Offenbach,  and  that  they  are  truly 
comedies  of  a  kind.    That  is  to  say,  the  books  of 

*  Patience'  and  'Pinafore'  do  not  differ  widely  in 
method  or  in  purpose  from  Gilbert's  non-musical  play 

*  Engaged';  and  the  books  of  the  'Vie  Parisienne'  and 
the  'Diva'  do  not  differ  widely  from  Meilhac  and 
Hallvy's  non-musical  play,  'Tricoche  et  Cacolet.' 
'Engaged'  and  'Tricoche  et  Cacolet'  are  farces  or  light 
comedies,  and  we  find  that  it  is  not  easy  to  draw  a 
strict  line  of  demarcation  between  Hght  comedies  of 
this  sort  and  comedies  of  a  more  elevated  type.  Gil- 
bert was  also  the  author  of  'Sweethearts,'  and  of 
'Charity,'  and  Meilhac  and  Halevy  were  also  the  au- 
thors of  'Froufrou.'  Still  more  difficult  would  it  be 
to  separate  sharply  plays  like  'Charity'  and  'Frou- 
frou' from  the  social  dramas  of  Pinero  and  Ibsen,  the 
'Benefit  of  the  Doubt,'  for  instance,  and  the  'Doll's 
House.'  Sometimes  these  social  dramas  stiffen  into 
actual  tragedy,  the  'Second  Mrs.  Tanqueray,'  for  ex- 
ample, and  'Ghosts.'  And  more  than  one  critic  has 
dwelt  upon  the  structural  likeness  of  the  somber  and 
austere  'Ghosts'  of  Ibsen  to  the  elevated  and  noble 

8 


THE    SHOW   BUSINESS 

'CEdipus  the  King'  of  Sophocles,  even  if  the  Greek 
play  is  full  of  a  serener  poetry  and  charged  with  a 
deeper  message. 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  Buffalo  Bill's  Wild  West  to  the 
'CEdipus'  of  Sophocles;  but  they  are  only  opposite 
ends  of  a  long  chain  which  binds  together  the  hetero- 
geneous medley  of  so-called  "amusements."  In  the 
eyes  of  every  observer  with  insight  into  actual  condi- 
tions, the  show  business  bears  an  obvious  resemblance 
to  the  United  States,  in  that  it  is  a  vast  territory 
divided  into  contiguous  States,  often  difficult  to  bound 
with  precision;  and,  like  the  United  States,  the  show 
business  is,  in  the  words  of  Webster,  "one  and  indi- 
visible, now  and  forever."  There  is  indisputable  profit 
for  every  student  of  the  art  of  the  stage  in  a  frank 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  dramatic  Hterature  is  in- 
extricably associated  with  the  show  business,  and  the 
wider  and  deeper  his  acquaintance  with  the  ramifica- 
tions of  the  show  business,  the  better  fitted  he  is  to 
understand  certain  characteristics  of  the  masterpieces 
of  dramatic  hterature.  Any  consideration  of  dramatic 
literature,  apart  from  the  actual  conditions  of  per- 
formance, apart  from  the  special  theater  for  which 
any  given  play  was  composed,  and  to  the  conditions 
of  which  it  had,  perforce,  to  conform,  is  bound  to  be 
one-sided,  not  to  say  sterile.  The  masterpieces  of  dra- 
matic hterature  were  all  of  them  written  to  be  per- 
formed by  actors,  in  a  theater,  and  before  an  audience. 
And  these  masterpieces  of  dramatic  Hteratiu'e  which 
we  now  analyze  with  reverence,  were  all  of  them  im- 

9 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

mediately  successful  when  represented  by  the  per- 
formers for  whom  they  were  written,  and  in  the  play- 
houses to  the  conditions  of  which  they  had  been 
adjusted. 

It  is  painfully  difficult  for  the  purely  literary  critic 
to  recognize  the  inexorable  fact  that  there  are  no  truly 
great  plays  which  failed  to  please  the  contemporary 
spectators  for  whose  delight  they  were  devised.  Many 
of  the  plays  which  win  success  from  time  to  time, 
indeed,  most  of  them,  achieve  only  a  fleeting  vogue; 
they  lack  the  element  of  permanence;  they  have  only 
theatrical  effectiveness;  and  they  are  devoid  of  abiding 
dramatic  value.  But  the  truly  great  dramas  estab- 
lished themselves  first  on  the  stage;  and  afterward 
they  also  revealed  the  solid  quaKties  which  we  demand 
in  the  study.  They  withstood,  first  of  all,  the  ordeal 
by  fire  before  the  footlights  of  the  theater,  and  they 
were  able  thereafter  also  to  resist  the  touchstone  of 
time  in  the  library. 

When  an  academic  investigator  into  the  arid  annals 
of  dogmatic  disquisition  about  the  drama  was  rash 
enough  to  assert  that,  "from  the  standpoint  of  the 
history  of  culture,  the  theater  is  only  one,  and  a  very 
insignificant  one,  of  all  the  influences  that  have  gone 
to  make  up  dramatic  literature,"  Mr.  William  Archer 
promptly  pointed  out  that  this  was  "just  about  as 
reasonable  as  to  declare  that  the  sea  is  only  one,  and  a 
very  insignificant  one,  among  the  influences  that  have 
gone  to  the  making  of  ships."  It  is  true,  Mr.  Archer 
admitted,  that  there  are  "model  ships  and  ships  built 

10 


THE    SHOW    BUSINESS 

for  training  purposes  on  dry  land;  but  they  all  more 
or  less  closely  imitate  sea-going  vessels,  and  if  they 
did  not,  we  should  not  call  them  ships  at  all. . .  .  The 
ship-builder,  in  planning  his  craft,  must  know  what 
depths  of  water — ^be  it  river,  lake,  or  ocean — she  will 
have  to  ply  in,  what  conditions  of  wind  and  weather 
she  may  reckon  upon  encountering,  and  what  speed 
will  be  demanded  of  her  if  she  is  to  fulfil  the  purpose 
for  which  she  is  destined. . . .  The  theater — the  actual 
building,  with  its  dimensions,  structure,  and  scenic  ap- 
pHances — is  the  dramatist's  sea.  And  the  audience 
provides  the  weather." 

Ill 

Since  the  drama  is  irrevocably  related  to  the  theater, 
all  the  varied  ramifications  of  the  show  business  have 
their  interest  and  their  significance  for  students  of  the 
stage.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  there  is  no  form 
of  entertainment,  however  humble  and  however  re- 
mote from  literature,  which  may  not  supply  a  useful 
hint  or  two,  now  and  again,  to  the  historian  of  the 
drama.  For  example,  few  things  would  seem  farther 
apart  than  the  lamentable  tragedy  of  Pxmch  and  Judy 
and  the  soul-stirring  plays  of  the  Athenian  dramatic 
poets;  and  yet  there  is  more  than  one  point  of  con- 
tact between  these  two  performances.  An  alert  ob- 
server of  a  Punch-and-Judy  show  in  the  streets  of 
London  can  get  help  from  it  for  the  elucidation  of  a 
problem  or  two  which  may  have  puzzled  him  in  his 

11 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

effort  to  understand  the  peculiarities  of  Attic  tragedy. 
Mr.  Punch's  wooden  head,  for  example,  has  the  same 
unchanging  expression  which  characterized  the  tower- 
ing masks  worn  by  the  Athenian  performers.  In  like 
manner  a  nondescript  hodgepodge  of  funny  episodes, 
interspersed  with  songs  and  dances,  such  as  Weber 
and  Fields  used  to  present  in  New  York,  may  be  util- 
ized to  shed  light  on  the  lyrical-burlesques  of  Aristoph- 
anes as  these  were  performed  in  Athens  more  than  two 
thousand  years  ago. 

Perhaps  even  a  third  instance  of  this  possibihty  of 
explaining  the  glorious  past  by  the  humble  present 
may  not  be  out  of  place.  A  few  years  ago  Edward 
Harrigan  put  together  a  variety-show  sketch,  called 
the  '  Mulligan  Guards,'  and  its  success  encouraged  him 
to  develop  it  into  a  Httle  comic  drama  called  the 
*MulHgan  Guards'  Picnic,'  which  was  the  earhest  of 
a  succession  of  farcical  studies  of  tenement-house  life 
in  New  York,  culminating  at  last  in  a  three-act  comedy, 
entitled  'Squatter  Sovereignty.'  In  this  series  of 
humorous  pieces  Harrigan  set  before  us  a  wide  variety 
of  types  of  character.  Irishmen  of  all  sorts,  Germans 
and  Italians,  negroes  and  Chinamen,  as  these  are 
commingled  in  the  melting-pot  of  the  cosmopolitan 
metropolis.  These  humorous  pieces  were  the  result  of 
a  spontaneous  evolution,  and  their  author  was  wholly 
innocent  of  any  acquaintance  with  the  Latin  drama. 
And  yet,  as  it  happened,  Harrigan  was  doing  for  the 
tenement-house  population  of  New  York  very  much 
what  Plautus  had  done  for  the  tenement-house  popula- 

12 


THE    SHOW    BUSINESS 

tion  of  Rome.  A  familiarity  with  the  plays  of  the  Latin 
playwright  could  not  but  increase  our  appreciation  of 
the  amusing  pieces  of  the  Irish-American  sketcli- 
writer;  and  a  familiarity  with  the  comic  dramas  of 
Harrigan  could  not  fail  to  be  of  immediate  assistance 
to  us  in  our  desire  to  understand  the  remote  life  which 
Plautus  was  dealing  with. 

The  plays  of  the  Roman  dramatist  were  deliberately 
adapted  from  the  Greek,  and  they  therefore  had  an 
avowedly  Hterary  source,  whereas  the  immediate  origin 
of  the  plays  performed  in  New  York  was  only  an  un- 
pretending sketch  for  a  variety-show;  but  both  of 
these  groups  had  the  same  flavor  of  veracity  in  their 
reproduction  of  the  teeming  life  of  the  tenements. 
Humble  as  is  the  beginning  of  the  'Mulligan  Guard' 
series,  at  least  as  humble  is  the  beginning  of  the  im- 
provised pieces  of  the  ItaHans,  the  comedy  of  masks, 
which  MoHere  lifted  into  Uterature  in  his  'Etourdi,' 
and  in  his  'Fourberies  de  Scapin.'  In  the  hands  of  the 
ItaHans  the  comedy  of  masks  was  absolutely  imliter- 
ary,  since  it  was  not  even  written,  and  its  performers 
were  not  only  comedians,  but  acrobats  also.  And  here 
the  drama  is  seen  to  be  impinging  on  the  special  sphere 
of  the  circus — ^just  as  it  does  again  in  the  plays  prepared 
for  the  New  York  Hippodrome.  It  is  more  than  prob- 
able that  this  improvised  comedy  of  the  Italians  is  the 
long  development  of  a  primitive  semi-gymnastic,  semi- 
dramatic  entertainment,  given  by  a  Httle  group  of 
strollers,  performing  in  the  open  market-place  to  please 
the  casual  crowd  that  might  collect. 

13 


A    BOOK   ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

Equally  unpretending  was  the  origin  of  the  French 
melodrama,  which  Victor  Hugo  lifted  into  Hterature 
in  his  'Hernani'  and  *Ruy  Bias.'  It  began  in  the 
temporary  theaters  erected  for  a  brief  season  in  one  or 
the  other  of  the  fairs  held  annually  in  different  parts  of 
Paris.  The  performances  in  these  playhouses  were  al- 
most exactly  equivalent  to  those  in  our  variety-shows; 
they  were  medleys  of  song  and  dance,  of  acrobatic 
feats  and  of  exhibitions  of  trained  animals.  As  in 
our  own  variety-shows,  again,  there  were  also  little 
plays  performed  from  time  to  time,  at  first  scarcely 
more  than  a  framework  on  which  to  hang  songs  and 
dances,  but  at  last  taking  on  a  solider  substance,  until 
finally  they  stiffened  themselves  into  pathetic  pieces 
in  three  or  more  acts,  capable  of  providing  pleasure 
for  a  whole  evening.  The  humor  was  direct,  and  the 
characters  were  painted  in  the  primary  colors;  the 
passions  were  violent,  and  the  plots  were  arbitrary; 
but  the  playwrights  had  discovered  how  to  hold  the 
interest  of  their  simple-minded  spectators,  and  how  to 
draw  tears  and  laughter  at  will. 

In  fact,  the  more  minutely  the  history  of  the  stage 
is  studied,  the  more  clearly  do  we  perceive  that  the  be- 
ginnings of  every  form  of  the  drama  are  strangely  un- 
pretentious, and  that  literary  merit  is  attained  only  in 
the  final  stages  of  its  development.  Dramatic  litera- 
ture is  but  the  ultimate  evolution  of  that  which  in  the 
beginning  was  only  an  insignificant  and  unimportant 
experiment  in  the  show  business;  and  it  must  always 
remain  intimately  related  to  the  show  business,  even 

14 


THE    SHOW   BUSINESS 

when  it  climbs  to  the  lonely  peaks  of  the  poetic  drama. 
Whatever  its  value,  and  however  weighty  its  message, 
it  is  still  to  be  commented  upon  under  the  head  of 
"amusements,"  for  if  it  does  not  succeed  in  amusing, 
it  ceases  to  exist  except  in  the  Hbrary,  and  even  there 
only  for  special  students.  It  Hves  by  its  immediate 
theatrical  effectiveness  alone,  even  if  it  can  survive 
solely  by  its  Kterary  quality. 

IV 

Those  who  are  in  the  habit  of  gaging  the  drama  by 
this  Hterary  quality  only  are  prone  to  deplore  the  bad 
taste  of  the  public  which  flocks  to  purely  spectacular 
pieces.  But  this  again  is  no  new  thing,  and  it  does  not 
disclose  any  decline  in  the  ability  to  appreciate  the 
best.  A  century  ago  in  London,  when  Sarah  Siddons 
and  John  Philip  Kemble  were  in  the  full  plenitude  of 
their  powers,  and  when  they  were  performing  the  noblest 
plays  of  Shakspere,  they  were  thrust  aside  for  a  season 
or  two  while  the  theater  was  given  up  to  empty  melo- 
dramatic spectacles  Uke  'Castle  Specter'  and  the  'Cat- 
aract of  the  Ganges.'  It  was  horrifying  to  the  lovers 
of  the  drama  that  these  great  actors  in  those  great 
plays  should  have  to  give  way  to  the  attraction  exerted 
on  the  pubHc  by  a  trained  elephant,  or  by  an  imitation 
waterfall;  but  it  is  equally  horrifying  to  be  informed 
that  the  theater  in  London  for  which  Shakspere  wrote 
his  masterpieces,  and  in  which  he  himself  appeared  as 
an  actor,  was  also  used  for  fencing-matches,  and  for 

15 


A    BOOK   ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

bull-baitings  and  bear-baitings,  and  that  the  theater  in 
Athens  for  which  Sophocles  wrote  his  masteipieces, 
and  in  which  he  may  have  appeared  as  an  actor,  was 
also  used  for  the  annual  cock-fight. 

So  strong  is  the  popular  appreciation  of  spectacle 
that  the  drama,  the  true  theater  as  distinguished  from 
the  mere  show  business,  has  always  to  fight  for  its 
right  to  exist,  and  to  hold  its  place  in  competition  with 
less  intellectual  and  more  sensational  entertainments. 
The  playhouses  of  any  American  city  are  Hkely  to  have 
a  lean  week  whenever  the  circus  comes  to  town,  and 
perhaps  the  chief  reason  why  the  most  of  them  now 
close  in  summer  is  to  be  sought  not  so  much  in  the 
frequent  hot  spells,  as  in  the  irresistible  attraction  ex- 
erted by  the  base-ball  games.  The  drama  in  Spain, 
which  flourished  superbly  in  the  days  of  Lope  de 
Vega  and  Calderon,  sank  into  a  sad  decline  when  it 
had  to  compete  with  the  fiercer  delights  of  the  bull- 
fight; and  the  drama  in  Rome  was  actually  killed  out 
by  the  overpowering  rivalry  of  the  sports  of  the  arena, 
the  combats  of  gladiators,  and  the  matching  of  men 
with  wild  beasts.  What  is  known  to  the  economists 
as  Gresham's  Law,  according  to  which  an  inferior  cur- 
rency always  tends  to  drive  out  a  superior,  seems  to 
have  an  analog  in  the  show  business.   ' 

(1912.) 


16 


n 

THE  LIMITATIONS  OF  THE  STAGE 


THE  LIMITATIONS  OF  THE  STAGE 

I 

Few  competent  critics  would  dispute  the  assertion 
that  the  drama,  if  not  actually  the  noblest  of  the  arts, 
is  at  all  events  the  most  comprehensive,  since  it  can 
invoke  the  aid  of  all  the  others  without  impairing  its 
own  individuality  or  surrendering  its  right  to  be  con- 
sidered the  senior  partner  in  any  aUiance  it  may  make. 
Poetry,  oratory,  and  music,  painting,  sculpture,  and 
architecture,  these  the  drama  can  take  into  its  service, 
with  no  danger  to  its  own  control.  Yet  even  if  the 
drama  may  have  the  widest  range  of  any  of  the  arts, 
none  the  less  are  its  boundaries  clearly  defined.  What 
it  can  do,  it  does  with  a  sharpness  of  effect  and  with 
a  cogency  of  appeal  no  other  art  can  rival.  But  there 
are  many  things  it  cannot  do;  and  there  are  not  a  few 
things  that  it  can  attempt  only  at  its  peril.  Some  of 
these  impossibihties  and  inexpediencies  are  psychologic 
subtleties  of  character  and  of  sentiment  too  deUcate 
and  too  minute  for  the  magnifying  lens  of  the  theater 
itself;  and  some  of  them  are  physical,  too  large  in 
themselves  to  be  compressed  into  the  rigid  area  of 
the  stage.  In  advance  of  actual  experiment,  it  is  not 
always  possible  for  even  the  most  experienced  of  the- 
atrical experts  to  decide  the  question  with  certainty. 
Moreover,  there  is  always  the  audience  to  be  reck- 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

oned  with,  and  even  old  stagers  like  Henry  Irving  and 
Victorien  Sardou  cannot  foresee  the  way  in  which  the 
many-headed  monster  will  take  what  is  set  before  it. 
When  Percy  Fitzgerald  and  W.  G.  Wills  were  prepar- 
ing an  adaptation  of  the  *  Flying  Dutchman'  for  Henry 
Irving,  the  actor  made  a  suggestion  which  the  authors 
immediately  adopted.  The  romantic  legend  has  for 
its  hero  a  sea-captain  condemned  to  eternal  life  until 
he  can  find  a  maiden  willing  to  share  his  lot;  and  when 
at  last  he  meets  the  heroine  she  has  another  lover,  who 
is  naturally  jealous  of  the  new  aspirant  to  her  hand. 
The  young  rival  challenges  Vanderdecken  to  a  duel, 
and  what  Irving  proposed  was  that  the  survivor  of 
the  fight  should  agree  to  throw  the  body  of  his  rival 
into  the  sea,  and  that  the  waves  should  cast  up  the 
condemned  Vanderdecken  on  the  shore,  since  the  ill- 
fated  sailor  could  not  avoid  his  doom  by  death  at  the 
hand  of  man.  This  was  an  appropriate  development 
of  the  tale;  it  was  really  imaginative;  and  it  would 
have  been  strangely  moving  if  it  had  introduced  into  it 
a  ballad  on  the  old  theme.  But  in  a  play  performed 
before  us  in  a  theater  its  effect  was  not  altogether  what 
its  proposer  had  hoped  for,  altho  he  presented  it  with 
all  his  marvelous  command  of  theatrical  artifice. 

The  stage-setting  Irving  bestowed  upon  this  episode 
was  perfectly  in  keeping  with  its  tone.  The  spectators 
saw  the  sandy  beach  of  a  little  cove  shut  in  by  cliffs, 
with  the  placid  ocean  bathed  in  the  sunset  glow.  The 
two  men  crossed  swords  on  the  strand;  Vanderdecken 
let  himself  be  killed,  and  the  victorious  lover  carried 

20 


LIMITATIONS    OF   THE    STAGE 

his  rival's  body  up  the  rocks  and  hurled  it  into  the 
ocean.  Then  he  departed,  and  for  a  moment  all  was 
silence.  A  shuddering  sigh  soon  swept  over  the  face 
of  the  waters,  and  a  ripple  lapped  the  sand.  Then  a 
little  wave  broke  on  the  beach,  and  withdrew,  rasping 
over  the  stones.  At  last  a  huge  roller  crashed  forward 
and  the  sea  gave  up  its  dead.  Vanderdecken  lay  high 
and  dry  on  the  shore,  and  in  a  moment  he  staggered 
to  his  feet,  none  the  worse  for  his  wounds.  But  un- 
fortunately the  several  devices  for  accomplishing  this 
result,  admirable  as  they  were,  drew  attention  each 
of  them  to  itself.  The  audience  could  not  help  wonder- 
ing how  the  trick  of  the  waves  was  being  worked,  and 
when  the  Flying  Dutchman  was  washed  up  by  the 
water,  it  was  not  the  mighty  deep  rejecting  Vander- 
decken, again  cursed  with  life,  that  the  spectators  per- 
ceived, but  rather  the  dignified  Henry  Irving  himself, 
unworthily  tumbled  about  on  the  dust  of  his  own 
stage.  In  the  effort  to  make  visible  this  imaginative 
embellishment  of  the  strange  story,  its  magic  potency 
vanished.  The  poetry  of  the  striking  improvement 
on  the  old  tale  had  been  betrayed  by  its  translation 
into  the  material  realities  of  the  theater,  since  the 
concrete  presentation  necessarily  contradicted  the  ab- 
stract beauty  of  the  idea. 

Here  we  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  one  of  the 
most  obvious  limitations  of  the  stage — that  its  power 
of  suggestion  is  often  greater  than  its  power  of  actual 
presentation.  There  are  many  things,  poetic  and 
imaginative,  which  the  theater  can  accomplish,  after 

21 


A    BOOK   ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

a  fashion,  but  which  it  ventures  upon  only  at  imminent 
peril  of  failure.  Many  things  which  are  startlingly 
effective  in  the  telling  are  ineffective  in  the  actual  see- 
ing. The  mere  mechanism  needed  to  represent  them 
wiU  often  be  contradictory,  and  sometimes  even  de- 
structive. Perhaps  it  may  be  advisable  to  cite  another 
example,  not  quite  so  cogent  as  Irving's '  Vanderdecken,' 
and  yet  carrying  the  same  moral.  This  other  example 
will  be  found  in  a  piece  by  Sardou,  a  man  who  knew 
all  the  possibilities  of  the  theater  as  intimately  as 
Irving  himself,  and  who  was  wont  to  utilize  them 
with  indefatigable  skill.  Indeed,  so  frequently  did  the 
French  plajnvright  avail  himself  of  stage  devices,  and 
so  often  was  he  williQg  to  rely  upon  them,  that  not  a 
few  critics  of  om*  latter-day  drama  have  been  inclined 
to  dismiss  him  as  merely  a  supremely  adroit  theatrical 
trickster. 

In  his  sincerest  play,  'Patrie,'  the  piece  which  he 
dedicated  to  Motley,  and  which  he  seems  himself  to 
have  been  proudest  of,  Sardou  invented  a  most  pic- 
turesque episode.  The  Spaniards  are  in  possession  of 
Brussels;  the  citizens  are  ready  to  rise,  and  William 
of  Orange  is  coming  to  their  assistance.  The  chiefs  of 
the  revolt  leave  the  city  secretly  and  meet  WiUiam  at 
night  in  the  frozen  moat  of  an  outlying  fort.  A  Span- 
ish patrol  interrupts  their  consultation,  and  forces  them 
to  conceal  themselves.  A  little  later  a  second  patrol 
is  heard  approaching,  just  when  the  return  of  the  first 
patrol  is  impending.  For  the  moment  it  looks  as  tho 
the  patriots  would  be  caught  between  the  two  Spanish 

22 


LIMITATIONS    OF    THE    STAGE 

companies.  But  William  of  Orange  rises  to  the  occa- 
sion. He  calls  on  his  "sea-wolves";  and  when  the 
second  patrol  appears,  marching  in  single  file,  there 
suddenly  spring  out  of  the  darkness  upon  every  Span- 
ish soldier  two  fur-clad  creatures,  who  throttle  him, 
bind  him,  and  throw  him  into  a  hole  in  the  ice  of  the 
moat.  Then  they  swiftly  fill  in  this  gaping  cavity 
with  blocks  of  snow,  and  trample  the  path  level  above 
it.  And  almost  immediately  after  the  sea-wolves  have 
done  their  deadly  work  and  withdrawn  again  into 
hiding,  the  first  patrol  returns,  and  passes  all  unsuspect- 
ing over  the  bodies  of  their  comrades — a  very  practical 
example  of  dramatic  irony. 

As  it  happened,  I  had  read  'Patrie'  some  years  be- 
fore I  had  an  opportunity  to  see  it  on  the  stage,  and 
this  picturesque  scene  had  lingered  in  my  memory  so 
that  in  the  theater  I  eagerly  awaited  its  coming. 
When  it  arrived  at  last  I  was  sadly  disappointed.  The 
sea-wolves  beHed  their  appetizing  name;  they  irresisti- 
bly suggested  a  group  of  trained  acrobats,  and  I  found 
myself  carelessly  noting  the  artifices  by  the  aid  of  which 
the  imitation  snowballs  were  made  to  fill  the  trap- 
door of  the  stage  which  represented  the  yawning  hole 
in  the  ice  of  the  frozen  moat.  The  thing  told  was  pic- 
turesque, but  the  thing  seen  was  curiously  unmoving; 
and  I  have  noted  without  surprise  that  in  the  latest 
revival  of  'Patrie'  the  attempt  to  make  this  episode 
effective  was  finally  abandoned,  the  sea-wolves  being 
cut  out  of  the  play. 


23 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 


n 

In  'Patrie'  as  in  'Vanderdecken'  the  real  reason  for 
the  failure  of  these  mechanical  devices  is  that  the  plays 
were  themselves  on  a  superior  level  to  those  stage- 
tricks;  the  themes  were  poetic,  and  any  theatrical 
effect  which  drew  attention  to  itself  interrupted  the 
ciu*rent  of  emotional  sympathy.  It  disclosed  itself  in- 
stantly as  incongruous,  as  out  of  keeping  with  the  ele- 
vation of  the  legend — ^in  a  word,  as  inartistic.  A  sim- 
ilar effect,  perhaps  even  more  frankly  mechanical, 
would  not  be  inartistic  in  a  play  of  a  lower  type,  and  it 
might  possibly  be  helpful  in  a  frankly  spectacular 
piece,  even  if  this  happened  also  to  be  poetic  in  intent. 
In  a  fairy-play,  a/eene,  as  the  French  term  it,  we  expect 
to  behold  all  sorts  of  startling  ingenuities  of  stage- 
mechanism,  whether  the  theme  is  deUghtfully  imagina- 
tive, as  in  Maeterlinck's  beautiful  'Blue  Bird,'  or  crassly 
prosaic,  as  in  the  'Black  Crook'  and  the  'White  Fawn.' 

In  picturesque  melodrama  also,  in  the  dramatization 
of  'Ben  Hur,'  for  example,  we  should  be  disappointed 
if  we  were  bereft  of  the  wreck  of  the  Roman  galley, 
and  if  we  were  deprived  of  the  chariot  race.  These 
episodes  can  be  presented  in  the  theater  only  by  the 
aid  of  mechanisms  far  more  elaborate  than  those  needed 
for  the  scenes  in  'Vanderdecken'  and  'Patrie';  but 
in  'Ben  Hur'  these  mechanisms  are  not  incongruous 
and  distracting  as  were  the  simpler  devices  of  'Van- 
derdecken* and  'Patrie,'  because  the  dramatization  of 

24 


LIMITATIONS    OF   THE    STAGE 

the  romanticist  historical  novel  is  less  lofty  in  its  am- 
bition, less  imaginative,  less  ethereally  poetic.  In 
'Vanderdecken'  and  in  'Patrie'  the  tricks  seemed  to 
obtrude  themselves,  whereas  in  'Ben  Hur'  they  were 
almost  obligatory.  In  certain  melodramas  with  more 
modem  stories — ^in  the  amusing  piece  called  the 
*  Round  Up,'  for  example — ^the  scenery  is  the  main  at- 
traction. The  scene-painter  is  the  real  star  of  the 
show.  And  there  is  no  difficulty  in  understanding  the 
wail  of  the  performer  of  the  principal  part  in  a  piece  of 
this  sort,  when  he  complained  that  he  was  engaged  to 
support  forty  tons  of  scenery.  "It's  only  when  the 
stage-carpenters  have  to  rest  and  get  their  breath  that 
I  have  a  chance  to  come  down  to  the  footHghts  and 
bark  for  a  minute  or  two." 

A  moment's  consideration  shows  that  this  plaintive 
protest  is  xmreasonable,  however  natural  it  may  be. 
In  melodramas  like  the  'Round  Up'  and  'Ben  Hur,'  as 
in  fairy-plays  like  the  'Blue  Bird,'  the  acting  is  properly 
subordinated  to  the  spectacular  splendor  of  the  whole 
performance.  When  we  enter  a  theater  to  behold  a 
play  of  either  of  these  types,  we  expect  the  acting  to 
be  adequate,  no  doubt,  but  we  do  not  demand  the 
highest  type  of  histrionic  excellence.  What  we  do  an- 
ticipate, however,  is  a  spectacle  pleasing  to  the  eye 
and  stimulating  to  the  nerves.  In  plays  of  these  two 
classes  the  appeal  is  sensuous  rather  than  intellectual; 
and  it  is  only  when  the  appeal  of  the  play  is  to  the 
mind  rather  than  to  the  senses  that  merely  mechanical 
effects  are  likely  to  be  disconcerting. 

25 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

Mr.  William  Archer  has  pointed  out  that  Ibsen  in 
'Little  Eyolf/  has  for  once  failed  to  perceive  the  strict 
limitation  of  the  stage  when  he  introduced  a  flagstaff, 
with  the  flag  at  first  at  half-mast,  and  a  Httle  later  run 
up  to  the  peak.  Now,  there  are  no  natural  breezes  in 
the  theater  to  flutter  the  folds  of  the  flag,  and  every 
audience  is  aware  of  the  fact.  This,  then,  is  the  di- 
lemma: either  the  flag  hangs  limp  and  lifeless  against 
the  pole,  which  is  a  flat  spectacle,  or  else  its  folds  are 
made  to  flutter  by  some  concealed  pneumatic  blast  or 
electric  fan,  which  instantly  arouses  the  inquiring  curi- 
osity of  the  audience.  Here  we  find  added  evidence  in 
support  of  Herbert  Spencer's  invaluable  principle  of 
Economy  of  Attention,  which  he  himself  applied  only  to 
rhetoric,  but  which  is  capable  of  extension  to  all  the 
other  arts — ^and  to  no  one  of  them  more  usefully  than 
to  the  drama.  At  any  given  moment  a  spectator  in 
the  theater  has  only  so  much  attention  to  bestow  upon 
the  play  being  presented  before  his  eyes,  and  if  any 
portion  of  his  attention  is  unduly  distracted  by  some 
detail — ^like  either  the  limpness  or  the  fluttering  of  a 
flag — then  he  has  just  so  much  less  to  give  to  the  play 
itself. 

Very  rarely,  indeed,  can  we  catch  Ibsen  at  fault  in  a 
technical  detail  of  stage-management;  he  was  extraor- 
dinarily meticulous  in  his  artful  adjustment  of  the 
action  of  his  social  dramas  to  the  picture-frame  stage 
of  our  modem  cosmopoHtan  theater.  He  was  mar- 
velously  skilful  in  endowing  each  of  his  acts  with  a 
background  harmonious  for  his  characters;  and  nearly 

2d 


LIMITATIONS    OF   THE    STAGE 

always  was  he  careful  to  refrain  from  the  employment 
of  any  scenic  device  which  might  attract  attention  to 
itself.  He  eschewed  altogether  the  more  violent  spec- 
tacular effects,  altho  he  did  call  upon  the  stage  man- 
ager to  supply  an  avalanch  in  the  final  act  of  'When 
the  Dead  Awaken*;  but  even  this  bold  convulsion  of 
nature  was  less  incongruous  than  might  be  expected, 
since  it  was  not  exhibited  until  the  action  of  the  play 
itself  was  complete.  In  fact,  the  avalanch  might  be 
described  as  only  a  pictorial  epilog. 

m 

The  principle  of  sternly  economizing  the  attention 
of  the  audience  can  be  violated  by  distractions  far  less 
extraneous  and  far  less  extravagant  than  avalanches. 
When  Marmontel's  forgotten  tragedy  of  'Cleopatra' 
was  produced  in  the  eighteenth  century  at  the  Theatre 
Frangais,  the  misguided  poet  prevailed  upon  Vaucan- 
son  to  make  an  artificial  asp,  which  the  Egyptian  queen 
coiled  about  her  arm  at  the  end  of  the  play,  thereby 
releasing  a  spring,  whereupon  the  beast  raised  its  head 
angrily  and  emitted  a  shrill  hiss  before  sinking  its  fangs 
into  Cleopatra's  flesh.  At  the  first  performance  a 
spectator,  bored  by  the  tediousness  of  the  tragedy, 
rose  to  his  feet  when  he  heard  the  hiss  of  the  tiny  ser- 
pent: "I  agree  with  the  asp!"  he  cried,  as  he  made 
his  way  to  the  door. 

But  even  if  Vaucanson's  skilful  automaton  had  not 
given  occasion  for  this  disastrous  gibe,  whatever  atten- 

27 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

tion  the  audience  might  pay  to  the  mechanical  means 
of  Cleopatra's  suicide  was  necessarily  subtracted  from 
that  available  for  the  sad  fate  of  Cleopatra  herself. 
If  at  that  moment  the  spectators  noted  at  all  the  hiss- 
ing snake,  then  they  were  not  really  in  a  fit  mood  to 
feel  the  tragic  death-struggle  of  "the  serpent  of  old 
Nile."  A  kindred  blunder  was  manifest  in  a  recent 
smnptuously  spectacular  revival  of  'Macbeth/  when 
the  three  witches  flew  here  and  there  thru  the  dim 
twilight  across  the  blasted  heath,  finally  vanishing  into 
empty  air.  These  mysterious  Sittings  and  disappear- 
ances were  achieved  by  attaching  the  performers  of  the 
weird  sisters  to  invisible  wires,  whereby  they  could  be 
swung  aloft;  the  trick  had  been  exploited  earlier  in 
the  so-called  Flying  Ballet,  wherein  it  was  a  graceful 
and  amusing  adjunct  of  the  terpsichorean  revels.  But 
in  'Macbeth'  it  emptied  Shakspere's  scene  of  its  dra- 
matic significance,  since  the  spectator  waited  for  and 
watched  the  startling  flights  of  the  witches,  and  ad- 
mired the  dexterity  with  which  their  aerial  voyages 
were  controlled;  and  as  a  result  he  failed  to  feel  the 
emotional  importance  of  the  interview  between  Mac- 
beth and  the  withered  croons,  whose  untoward  greet- 
ings were  to  start  the  villain-hero  on  his  downward 
career  of  crime. 

In  this  same  revival  of  'Macbeth'  an  equally  mis- 
placed ingenuity  was  lavished  on  the  apparition  of 
Banquo's  ghost  at  the  banquet.  The  gruesome  spec- 
ter was  made  mysteriously  visible  thru  the  temporarily 
transparent  walls  of  the  palace,  imtil  at  last  he  emerged 

28 


LIMITATIONS    OF   THE    STAGE 

to  take  his  seat  on  Macbeth's  chair.  The  effect  was 
excellent  in  itself,  and  the  spectators  followed  all  the 
movements  of  the  ghost  with  pleased  attention,  more 
or  less  forgetting  Macbeth,  and  failing  to  note  the 
maddening  effect  of  the  apparition  upon  the  seared 
countenance  of  the  assassin-king.  In  this  revival  of 
'Macbeth^  no  opportunity  was  neglected  to  adorn  the 
course  of  the  play  with  every  possible  scenic  and  me- 
chanic accompaniment;  and  the  total  result  of  these 
accumulated  artificialities  of  presentation  was  to  rob 
one  of  Shakspere's  most  poetic  tragedies  of  nearly  all 
its  poetry,  and  to  reduce  this  imaginative  masterpiece 
to  the  prosaic  level  of  a  spectacular  melodrama. 

Another  of  Shakspere's  tragedies  has  become  almost 
impossible  in  our  modem  playhouses,  because  the 
stage-manager  does  not  dare  to  do  without  the  spec- 
tacular effects  that  the  story  seems  to  demand.  Shak- 
spere  composed  'King  Lear'  for  the  bare  platform-stage 
of  the  Globe  Theater,  devoid  of  all  scenery,  and  sup- 
pHed  with  only  the  most  primitive  appHances  for  sug- 
gesting rain  and  thunder;  and  he  introduced  three 
successive  storm  scenes,  each  intenser  in  interest  than 
the  one  that  went  before,  imtil  the  culmination  comes 
in  perhaps  the  sublimest  and  most  pitiful  episode  in 
all  tragedy,  when  the  mad  king  and  his  follower,  who 
is  pretending  to  be  insane,  and  his  faithful  fool  are 
together  out  in  the  tempest.  At  the  original  produc- 
tion, three  centuries  ago,  the  three  storms  may  have 
increased  in  violence  as  they  followed  one  another; 
but  at  best  the  fierceness  of  the  contending  elements 

29 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

could  then  be  only  suggested,  and  the  rain  and  the 
thunder  were  not  allowed  to  divert  attention  away 
from  the  agonized  plight  of  the  mad  monarch.  But 
to-day  the  three  storm  scenes  are  rolled  into  one,  and 
the  stage-manager  sets  out  to  manufacture  a  reahstic 
tempest  in  rivalry  with  nature.  The  mimic  artillery  of 
heaven  and  the  simulated  deluge  from  the  skies  which 
the  producer  now  provides  may  excite  our  artistic  ad- 
miration for  his  skill,  but  they  distract  our  attention 
from  the  coming  together  of  the  characters  so  strangely 
met  in  the  midst  of  the  storm.  The  more  realistically 
the  tempest  is  reproduced  the  worse  it  is  for  the  tragedy 
itself;  and  in  most  recent  revivals  the  full  effect  of  the 
painful  story  has  been  smothered  by  the  sound  and 
fury  of  the  man-made  storm. 

The  counterweighted  wires  which  permit  the  figures 
of  the  Flying  Ballet  to  soar  over  the  stage  and  to  float 
aloft  in  the  air,  disturb  the  current  of  our  sympathy 
when  they  are  employed  to  lend  Hghtness  to  intangible 
creatures  like  the  weird  sisters  of  Shakspere's  tragedy; 
but  they  have  been  more  artistically  utilized  in  two  of 
Shakspere's  comedies  to  suggest  the  ethereahty  of 
Puck  and  of  Ariel.  The  action  of  the  ^Midsummer 
Night's  Dream'  takes  place  in  fairy-land,  and  that  of 
the  'Tempest'  passes  in  an  enchanted  island,  and  even 
if  we  wonder  for  a  moment  how  the  levitation  of  these 
airy  spirits  is  achieved,  this  temporary  distraction  of 
our  attention  is  negligible  in  playful  comedies  like  these 
with  all  their  scenes  laid  in  a  land  of  make-beheve. 
And  yet  it  may  be  doubted  whether  even  the  *  Mid- 
30 


LIMITATIONS    OF   THE    STAGE 

summer  Night's  Dream'  and  the  'Tempest/  fairy- 
plays  as  they  are,  do  not  on  the  whole  lose  more  than 
they  gain  from  elaborate  scenic  and  mechanical  ad- 
juncts. They  are  of  poetry  all  compact,  and  the  more 
simply  they  are  presented,  the  less  obtrusive  the  scen- 
ery and  the  less  protruded  the  needful  effects,  the  more 
the  effort  of  the  producer  is  centered  upon  preserving 
the  ethereal  atmosphere  wherein  the  characters  Hve, 
move,  and  have  their  being,  the  more  harmonious  the 
performance  is  with  the  pure  fancy  which  inspired  these 
two  dehghtful  pieces,  then  the  more  truly  successful 
is  the  achievement  of  the  stage-manager. 

IV 

On  the  other  hand,  of  course,  the  scenic  accompani- 
ment of  a  poetic  play,  whether  tragic  or  romantic  or 
comic,  must  never  be  so  scant  or  so  barren  as  to  dis- 
appoint the  spectators.  The  stage-accessories  must 
be  adequate  and  yet  subordinate;  they  ought  to  re- 
semble the  clothes  of  a  truly  well-dressed  woman,  in 
that  they  never  call  attention  to  themselves  altho  they 
can  withstand  and  even  reward  intimate  inspection. 
This  dehcate  ideal  of  artistic  stage-setting,  esthetically 
satisfjdng,  and  yet  never  flamboyant,  was  completely 
attained  in  the  production  of  'Sister  Beatrice,'  at  the 
New  Theater,  due  to  the  skill  and  taste  of  Mr.  Hamilton 
Bell.  The  several  manifestations  of  the  supernatural 
might  easily  have  been  over-emphasized;  but  a  fine 
restraint  resulted  in  a  unity  of  tone  and  of  atmosphere, 

31 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

BO  subtly  achieved  that  the  average  spectator  carried 
away  the  memory  of  more  than  one  lovely  picture  with- 
out having  let  his  thoughts  wander  away  to  consider 
by  what  means  he  had  been  made  to  feel  the  presence 
of  a  miracle. 

The  special  merit  of  this  production  of  'Sister  Bea- 
trice' lay  in  the  delicate  art  by  which  more  was  sug- 
gested than  could  well  be  shown.  In  the  theater,  more 
often  than  not,  the  half  is  greater  than  the  whole,  and 
what  is  unseen  is  frequently  more  powerful  than  what 
is  made  visible.  In  Mr.  Belasco's  *  Darling  of  the 
Gods,'  a  singularly  beautiful  spectacle,  touched  at 
times  with  a  pathetic  poetry,  the  defeated  samurais 
are  at  last  reduced  to  commit  hara-kiri.  But  we  were 
not  made  spectators  of  these  several  self-murders;  we 
were  permitted  to  behold  only  the  dim  cane-brake  into 
which  these  brave  men  had  withdrawn,  and  to  over- 
hear each  of  them  call  out  his  farewell  greetings  to  his 
friends  before  he  dealt  himself  the  deadly  thrust.  If 
we  had  been  made  witnesses  of  this  accumulated  self- 
slaughter  we  might  have  been  revolted  by  the  brutal- 
ity of  it.  Transmitted  to  us  out  of  a  vague  distance 
by  a  few  scattered  cries,  it  moved  us  like  the  inevita- 
ble close  of  a  truly  tragic  tale. 

In  the  'Aiglon'  of  M.  Rostand,  Napoleon's  feeble  son 
finds  himself  alone  with  an  old  soldier  of  his  father's 
on  the  battle-field  of  Wagram;  and  in  the  darkness  of 
the  night,  and  in  the  turmoil  of  a  wind-storm  the  hys- 
teric lad  almost  persuades  himself  that  he  is  actu- 
ally present  at  the  famous  fight,  that  he  can  hear  the 

32 


LIMITATIONS    OF    THE    STAGE 

shrieks  of  the  wounded,  and  the  groans  of  the  d)dng, 
and  that  he  can  see  the  hands  and  arms  of  the  dead 
stretched  up  from  the  ground.  This  is  all  in  the  sickly- 
boy's  fancy,  of  course,  and  yet  in  Paris  the  author 
had  voices  heard,  and  caused  hands  and  arms  to  be 
extended  upward  from  the  edge  of  the  back  drop,  thus 
vulgarizing  his  own  imaginative  episode  by  the  presen- 
tation of  a  concrete  reality.  Not  quite  so  inartistic  as 
this,  and  yet  frankly  freakish  was  the  arrangement  of 
the  closet  scene  between  Hamlet  and  his  mother,  when 
Sarah-Bemhardt  made  her  misguided  effort  to  imper- 
sonate the  Prince  of  Denmark.  On  the  walls  of  the 
room  where  Hamlet  talks  daggers  to  the  queen  there 
were  full-length,  life-sized  portraits  of  her  two  suc- 
cessive husbands,  and  when  Hamlet  bids  her  look  on 
this  pictiu-e,  and  on  this,  the  portrait  of  Hamlet's 
father  became  transparent,  and  in  its  frame  the  spec- 
tators suddenly  perceived  the  ghost.  This  is  an  ad- 
mirable example  of  misplaced  cleverness,  of  the  search 
for  novelty  for  its  own  sake,  of  the  sacrifice  of  the 
totaHty  of  impression  to  a  mere  trick. 

'Hamlet'  is  the  most  poetic  of  plays,  and  the  *Aiglon* 
does  its  best  to  be  poetic,  and  therefore  the  less  overt 
spectacle  there  may  be  in  the  performance  of  these 
dramas  the  easier  it  will  be  for  the  spectator  to  focus 
his  attention  on  the  poetry  itself.  Even  more  preten- 
tiously poetic  than  the  'Aiglon'  is  'Chantecler,'  upon 
which  the  ambitious  author  has  also  lavished  a  great 
variety  of  stage-effects — as  tho  he  were  not  quite  will- 
ing to  rely  for  success  upon  his  lyrical  exuberance. 

33 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE   THEATER 

In  M.  Rostand's  *Aiglon*  and  'Chantecler/  as  in 
Sarah-Bernhardt's  'Hamlet/  there  was  to  be  observed 
a  frequent  confusion  of  the  merely  theatric  with  the 
purely  dramatic — a  confusion  to  be  found  forty  years 
ago  in  Fechter's  'Hamlet.'  That  picturesque  French 
actor  made  over  the  English  tragedy  into  a  French 
romantic  melodrama;  he  kept  the  naked  plot,  and  he 
cut  out  all  the  poetry.  He  lowered  Shakspere's  play 
to  the  level  of  the  other  melodramas  in  which  he  had 
won  success — ^for  instance,  'No  Thorofare,'  due  to  the 
collaboration  of  Dickens  and  Wilkie  Collins,  or  the 
earher  'Fils  de  la  Nuit,'  acted  in  Paris  long  before 
Fechter  appeared  on  the  English-speaking  stage. 

The  'Son  of  the  Night'  was  a  pirate  bold,  personated, 
of  course,  by  Fechter,  and  in  one  act  his  long,  low, 
rakish  craft  with  its  black  flag  flying,  skimmed  across 
the  stage,  cutting  the  waves,  and  dropping  anchor  close 
to  the  footUghts.  The  surface  of  the  sea  was  rep- 
resented by  a  huge  cloth,  and  the  incessant  motion  of 
the  waves  was  due  to  the  concealed  activities  of  a 
dozen  boys.  The  play  had  so  long  a  run  that  the  sea- 
cloth  was  worn  dangerously  thin.  At  last  at  one  per- 
formance, a  rent  spread  suddenly  and  disclosed  a  dis- 
gusted boy,  just  as  the  pirate  ship  with  the  Son  of  the 
Night  on  its  deck  was  preparing  to  come  about.  Fech- 
ter was  equal  to  the  emergency.  "Man  overboard!" 
he  cried,  and,  leaning  over  the  bow  of  the  boat,  he 
grabbed  the  boy  by  the  collar  and  pulled  him  on  deck. 
Probably  very  few  of  the  spectators  noticed  the  mis- 
hap, and  if  they  had  all  observed  it,  what  matter?    A 

34 


LIMITATIONS    OF   THE    STAGE 

laugh  or  two,  more  or  less,  during  the  performance  of 
a  prosaic  melodrama,  is  of  little  or  no  consequence.  A 
disconcerting  accident  like  this  in  a  play  like  the  'Son 
of  the  Night'  does  not  cut  any  vital  current  of  sym- 
pathy, for  this  is  a  quahty  to  which  the  piece  could 
make  no  claim.  But  in  a  truly  poetic  play  a  mishap 
of  this  sort  would  be  a  misfortune  in  that  it  might  pre- 
cipitate the  interest  and  interrupt  the  harmony  of  at- 
tention demanded  by  the  imaginative  drama  itself. 
(1912.) 


35 


Ill 

A  MORAL  FROM  A  TOY  THEATER 


A  MORAL  FROM  A  TOY  THEATER 

I 

In  1881,  when  William  Ernest  Henley  was  hard  put  to 
it  to  make  a  living,  Sir  Sidney  Colvin  kindly  recom- 
mended him  for  the  editorship  of  the  monthly  Magazine 
of  Art.  Among  the  contributors  whom  the  new  editor 
called  to  his  aid  was  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  and 
among  the  contributions  the  latter  made  to  the  former's 
magazine  was  the  highly  characteristic  and  self -revela- 
tory essay,  entitled  'A  Penny  Plain  and  Two  Pence 
Colored,'  now  included  in  the  volume  called  'Memories 
and  Portraits.'  Li  this  playful  paper  Stevenson  makes 
one  of  his  many  returns  to  his  boyhood,  whose  moods 
he  could  always  recapture  at  will  with  the  assistance  of 
that  imaginative  memory  which  was  one  of  his  special 
gifts,  and  he  was  able  to  replevin  from  the  dim  limbo 
of  things  half  forgotten  his  longing  delight  in  the  toy 
theater,  the  scenes  for  which  and  the  necessary  proper- 
ties and  the  several  characters  themselves  in  their  suc- 
cessive dresses  were  to  be  procured  printed  on  very  thin 
cardboard,  so  that  the  proud  possessor  might  cut  them 
out  at  will.  If  the  youthful  capitahst  had  accumu- 
lated twopence,  he  could  acquire  these  treasures  al- 
ready resplendent  in  their  glowing  hues;  and  yet 
Stevenson  held  that  the  lad  was  happier  who  parted 
with  only  a  single  penny,  reserving  the  half  of  his  for- 

39 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

tune  for  the  purchase  of  the  paints  wherewith  he  might 
himself  vivify  this  scenery  and  these  properties,  and  so 
cause  his  characters  to  start  to  Hfe,  emblazoned  in  the 
bold  colors  which  please  the  puerile  miiid. 

These  sheets  of  thin  cardboard,  with  thin  little  pam- 
phlets containing  the  text  of  the  pieces  to  be  performed 
in  the  toy  theater,  were  originally  known  as  Skelt's 
Juvenile  Drama;  and  one  Skelt  seems  to  have  been 
its  originator,  probably  in  the  early  part  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  Apparently  he  parted  with  his  pre- 
cious stock  in  trade  to  one  Park,  who  passed  it  on  in  due 
season  to  one  Webb,  who  transmitted  it  to  one  Red- 
ington,  until  at  last  it  descended  to  its  present  owner, 
one  B.  Pollock,  of  73  Hoxton  Street,  London,  N. 
Stevenson  affected  to  think  that  Skelt's  Juvenile 
Drama  had  "become,  for  the  most  part,  a  memory"; 
yet  it  survives  now  in  the  second  decade  of  the  twen- 
tieth century  as  PoUock's  Juvenile  Drama,  and  Mr. 
Pollock  proclaims  that  he  has  republished  some  score 
plays,  and  that  he  keeps  them  always  in  print,  plain 
and  colored.  He  offers,  furthermore,  to  supply  "  Drop 
Scenes,  Top  Drops,  Orchestras,  Foot  and  Water  Pieces, 
Single  Portraits,  Combats — ^Fours,  Sixes,  Twelves, 
Sixteens — Fairies,  Horse  Soldiers,  Clowns,  Rifles,  An- 
imals, Birds,  Butterflies,  Houses,  Views,  Ships,  &c., 
plain  and  colored,  }4d  sheet  plain.  Id  sheet  colored." 

It  is  from  the  covers  of  "the  book  of  the  words"  of 
the  'Miller  and  His  Men'  that  this  enticing  proclama- 
tion is  taken — the  'Miller  and  His  Men,'  "adapted  only 
for  Pollock's  characters  and  scenes,"  and  accompanied 

40 


:a 

^ 

<4-l 

O 

c 

- 

o 

C! 

(1> 

^ 

'fi 

.22 

K 

-r> 

C 

<u 

as 

A    MORAL    FROM    A    TOY    THEATER 

by  "7  Plates  characters,  11  Scenes,  3  Wings,  Total  21 
Plates."  The  persons  of  the  drama  and  the  scenes 
wherein  that  drama  is  played  out  to  its  fiery  end,  are 
all  in  the  bolder  manner  of  the  Old  Masters,  who  sought 
the  broadest  effects,  and  who  willingly  neglected  petty 
details.  How  bold  and  how  broad  the  manner  and 
the  effects  can  best  be  judged  by  an  honest  transcrip- 
tion from  the  final  page  of  the  book  of  words,  wherein 
the  terse  and  tense  dialog,  single  speech  clashing  with 
single  speech,  is  accompanied  by  stage  directions  for 
the  instruction  of  the  Young  Masters  who  are  about 
to  produce  the  sublime  spectacle: 

Enter  Gnndorf  left  hand,  plate  4. 

Enter  Karl  and  Friberg,  swords  drawn,  plate  4,  followed  by 
the  Troops,  right  hand,  plate  7. 
Grindorf:  Ha !  ha  I    I  have  escaped  you,  have  I  ? 
Karl:  But  you  are  caught  in  your  own  trap. 
Grindorf:  Spiller  I — Golotz !  Golotz !    I  say ! 
Count:  Villain!  you  cannot  escape  us  now!    Surrender,  or 
instantly  meet  thy  fate  I 

Grindorf:   Siurender!    I  have  sworn  never  to  descend  from 
this  place  alive  I 

Enter  Lothair,  as  Spiller,  3rd  dress,  left  hand,  plate  7. 
Grindorf:  Spiller,  let  my  bride  appear. 
Exit  Lothair. 

Enter  Kehnar,  right  hand,  plate  1. 
Enter  Ravina  with  torch,  plate  7. 
Ravina:  Before  it  is  too  late,  restore  Claudine  to  her  father's 
arms! 

Grindorf:  Never! 
Ravina :  Then  I  know  my  course ! 
Enter  Lothair  with  Claudine,  left  hand,  plate  6. 
41 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

Kehnar:  My  child!    Ah,  Grindorf,  spare  her! 
Grindorf:  Hear  me,  Count  Friberg;  if  you  do  not  withdraw 
your  followers,  by  my  hand  she  dies ! 

Count:  Never,  till  thou  art  yielded  to  justice! 
Grindorf:  No  more — this  to  her  heart  1 
Lothair:  And  this  to  thine! 

Exit  Lothair  and  Claudine,  and  Grindorf. 

Re-enter  Grindorf  and  Lothair  fighting,  plate  6,  fight  and  exit. 

Grindorf  to  be  put  on  wounded,  plate  7. 

Re-enter  Lothair  with  Claudine,  plate  6. 
Lothair:  Ravina,  fire  the  train! 

Scene  changes  to  explosion,  Scene  11,  No.  9. 

The  words  are  striking  and  the  actions  are  startling, 
and  it  is  no  wonder  that  plate  7  and  scene  11,  No.  9, 
filled  with  joy  the  heart  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
when  he  was  a  perfervid  Scot  of  fourteen.  In  his  manly 
maturity,  when  he  had  risen  to  an  appreciation  of  por- 
traits by  Raebum,  and  when  he  had  sat  at  the  feet  of 
that  inspired  critic  of  painting,  his  cousin,  R.  A.  M. 
Stevenson,  he  admitted  that  he  had  no  desire  to  insist 
upon  the  art  of  Skelt's  purveyors.  "Those  wonderful 
characters  that  once  so  thrilled  our  soul  with  their  bold 
attitude,  array  of  deadly  engines  and  incomparable  cos- 
tume, to-day  look  somewhat  pallidly,"  he  confessed 
regretfully;  "the  extreme  hard  favor  of  the  heroine 
strikes  me,  I  had  almost  said  with  pain;  the  villain's 
scowl  no  longer  thrills  me  hke  a  trumpet;  and  the 
scenes  themselves,  those  once  incomparable  landscapes, 
seem  the  efforts  of  a  prentice  hand.  So  much  of  fault 
we  can  find;  but,  on  the  other  side,  the  impartial  critic 
rejoices  to  remark  the  presence  of  a  great  imity  of 

42 


-s^ 


A    MORAL    FROM    A    TOY    THEATER 

gusto;  of  those  direct  claptrap  appeals  which  a  man 
is  dead  and  buriable  when  he  fails  to  answer;  of  the 
footlight  glamor,  the  ready-made,  barefaced,  trans- 
pontine picturesque,  a  thing  not  one  with  cold  reaHty, 
but  how  much  dearer  to  the  mind !" 

II 

"Transpontine"  is  a  Briticism  for  which  the  equiva- 
lent Americanism  is  "Bowery."  The  plays  which 
Skelt  vended  for  the  enjoyment  of  romantic  youth  were 
not  of  his  own  invention,  nor  were  they  the  work  of  his 
hirelings;  they  were  artfully  simplified  condensations 
of  melodramas  long  popular  in  London  at  the  theaters 
on  the  Surrey  side  of  the  Thames,  and  in  New  York 
at  the  Bowery.  In  French's  Standard  Drama,  the 
Acting  Edition,  to  be  obtained  in  yellow  covers  for 
fifteen  fcents,  one  may  find  "the  'Miller  and  His  Men,' 
a  Melo-Drama  in  Two  Acts,  by  F.  Pocock,  Esq.,  author 
of  the  'Robber's  Wife,'  'John  of  Paris,'  'Hit  or  Miss,' 
'Magpie  and  the  Maid,'  etc.,  with  original  casts,  scene 
and  property  plots,  costumes,  and  all  the  stage  business." 
And  the  Ust  of  properties  required  for  the  final  scene 
helps  to  elucidate  what  may  have  been  cryptic  in  the 
dialog  quoted  from  the  compacted  adaptation  of  Skelt: 

Scene  4 : — Sloio  match  laid  from  stage  in  C.  to  mill.  Lighted  torch 
for  Ravina.  Red  fire  and  explosion  3  E.  L.  H.  Wood  crash 
3  E.  L.  H.  Six  stuffed  figures  of  robbers  behind  mill,  L.  H. 
Eight  guns,  swords,  and  belts  for  hussars.  Disguise  cloak  for 
Lothair.  Fighting  swords  for  Lothair  and  Wolf.  [Wolf  is 
evidently  another  name  for  Grindorf.] 
43 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

Thus  we  see  that  the  pleasant  country  of  the  Skelts 
stretched  from  the  Surrey  side  of  the  Thames  to  the 
Bowery  bank  of  the  Hudson,  and  that  the  Skeltic 
temperament  was  purely  melodramatic,  its  bass  notes 
being  transposed  to  adjust  it  to  the  clear  treble  of 
boyhood.  It  is  greatly  to  be  regretted  that  no  inquir- 
ing scholar  has  yet  devoted  himself  to  the  task  of  trac- 
ing the  history  of  EngUsh  melodrama,  as  Professor 
Thomdike  has  traced  the  history  of  English  tragedy. 
Of  course,  there  have  always  been  melodramatic  plays 
ever  since  the  drama  began  to  assert  itself  as  an  inde- 
pendent form  of  art.  There  is  a  melodramatic  ele- 
ment in  the  'Medea'  of  Euripides,  as  there  is  in  the 
'Rodogune'  of  Comeille;  and  in  the  Elizabethan  the- 
ater the  so-called  tragedy  of  blood  is  nothing  if  not 
melodramatic.  Yet  the  special  form  of  English  melo- 
drama that  flourished  in  the  later  years  of  the  eighteenth 
century  and  the  earlier  years  of  the  nineteenth  deserves 
a  more  careful  study  than  it  has  yet  received.  Appar- 
ently it  was  due  partly  to  a  decadence  of  the  native 
type  of  drama  represented  by  Lillo's  'George  Bam- 
well,'  and  partly  to  the  stimulation  received  first  from 
the  emotional  pieces  of  the  German  Kotzebue,  and 
afterward  from  the  picturesque  pieces  of  the  French 
Pix^r^court.  And  not  to  be  neglected  is  the  influence 
inmiediately  exerted  on  the  popular  plays  of  the  latter 
part  of  the  period  by  the  romances  of  Scott  and  of 
Cooper. 

Altho  these  plays  were  devoid  of  literary  merit,  of 
style,  of  veracity  of  character  delineation,  of  sincerity 

44 


A    MORAL    FROM    A    TOY    THEATER 

of  motive,  they  were  not  without  theatrical  effective- 
ness— or  they  could  never  have  maintained  them- 
selves in  the  theater.  As  Sir  Arthur  Pinero  has  seen 
clearly,  "a  drama  which  was  sufficiently  popular  to 
be  transferred  to  the  toy  theaters  was  almost  certain 
to  have  a  sort  of  rude  merit  in  its  construction.  The 
characterization  would  be  hopelessly  conventional,  the 
dialog  bald  and  despicable — ^but  the  situations  would 
be  artfully  arranged,  the  story  told  adroitly  and  with 
spirit."  In  other  words,  the  compounders  of  these 
melodramas  were  fairly  skilful  in  devising  plots  likely 
to  arouse  and  to  sustain  the  interest  of  uncritical 
audiences.  Probably  they  were  unfamiliar  with  Vol- 
taire's assertion  that  the  success  of  a  play  depends 
mainly  upon  the  choice  of  its  story;  and  it  is  unlikely 
that  they  had  any  knowledge  of  Aristotle's  declaration 
that  plot  is  primarily  more  important  than  character; 
but  they  accompHshed  their  humble  task  as  well  as  if 
they  had  been  heartened  by  these  authorities.  These 
ingenious  and  ingenuous  pieces  were  none  of  them  con- 
tributions to  English  dramatic  literature,  and  they  are 
not  enshrined  in  its  annals;  but  they  were  effective 
stage-plays,  nevertheless,  and  they  had,  therefore,  an 
essential  quality  lacking  in  the  closet-dramas  which 
Shelley  and  Byron  were  composing  in  those  same 
years. 


45 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 


m 

In  the  illuminating  lecture  on  Stevenson  as  a  writer 
of  plays  delivered  by  Sir  Arthur  Pinero  in  1903  before 
the  members  of  the  Edinburgh  Philosophical  Institu- 
tion, the  confessions  contained  in  'A  Penny  Plain  and 
Two  Pence  Colored'  are  skilfully  employed  to  explain 
Stevenson's  flat  failure  as  a  playwright.  Many  of  his 
ardent  admirers  must  have  wondered  why  it  was  that 
he  adventured  four  times  into  dramatic  authorship, 
only  to  undergo  a  fourfold  shipwreck.  Yet  Sir  James 
Barrie  and  Mr.  John  Galsworthy,  essayists  and  novel- 
ists at  first,  as  Stevenson  was,  strayed  successfully  from 
prose  fiction  into  the  acted  drama.  Was  not  Steven- 
son as  anxious  for  this  theatrical  triumph  as  any  one 
of  these  ?  Was  he  not  as  richly  dowered  with  dramatic 
power,  as  inventive,  as  responsive  to  opportimity,  as 
ready  to  master  a  new  craft  ?  Why,  then,  did  he  fail 
where  they  have  succeeded? 

For  these  baffling  questions  Sir  Arthur  Pinero  has 
an  acceptable  answer.  Stevenson  was  unable  to  es- 
tablish himseK  as  a  play-maker,  first,  because  he  did 
not  take  the  art  of  play-making  seriously;  he  did  not 
put  his  full  strength  in  it,  mind  and  soul  and  body, 
contenting  himself  when  he  was  a  man  with  playing 
at  play-making  as  he  had  played  with  his  toy  theater 
when  he  was  a  boy.  The  second  cause  of  his  disap- 
pointment as  a  dramatist  was  due  to  the  abiding  in- 
fluence of  this  toy  theater,  and  to  the  fact  that  the 

46 


■»-> 


-o 

u 
OS 

< 


W 


A    MORAL    FROM    A    TOY    THEATER 

pieces  he  attempted  were  planned  in  rivalry  with  the 
'Miller  and  His  Men/  and  therefore  that  they  were 
hopelessly  out  of  date  before  they  were  conceived. 
(There  is  a  third  reason,  not  mentioned  by  Sir  Arthur, 
and  yet  suggesting  itseM  irresistibly  to  any  one  who 
knew  the  editor  of  the  Magazine  of  Art  personally;  all 
four  of  Stevenson's  attempts  at  play-writing  were  made 
in  collaboration  with  Henley,  who  was  the  least 
equipped  by  temper  and  by  temperament  for  the  prac- 
tise of  dramaturgy.) 

Yet  even  if  Stevenson  had  worked  alone,  and  even 
if  he  had  taken  the  new  art  seriously,  he  could  never 
have  won  a  place  among  the  playwrights  until  he  had 
fought  himself  free  from  the  sinuous  coils  of  Skeltery. 
In  his  youth  he  had  saved  his  pence  to  purchase  the 
accessories  of  Skelt's  Juvenile  Drama  with  bojdsh  de- 
light in  the  acquisition  of  things  longed  for  to  be  pos- 
sessed at  last.  When  he  had  purchased  plate  7  and 
scene  11,  No.  9,  he  thought  they  were  his  possessions. 
But,  of  a  truth,  he  was  their  possession,  even  if  he  did 
not  know  his  slavery.  As  a  man  he  was  subdued  to 
what  he  had  worked  in  as  a  boy;  and  when  he  wanted 
to  write  plays  of  his  own,  he  had  no  freedom  to  follow 
the  better  models  of  his  own  day;  he  was  a  bondman 
to  Skelt,  a  thrall  to  Park,  a  minion  to  Webb,  a  chattel 
to  Redington  and  to  Pollock.  "  What  am  I  ?  "  he  asked 
in  his  self-revelatory  essay,  humorously  exaggerating, 
no  doubt,  yet  subconsciously  stating  the  exact  truth; 
"What  am  I?  What  are  life,  art,  letters,  the  world, 
but  what  my  Skelt  has  made  them?    He  stamped 

47 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

himself  upon  my  immaturity."  And  the  impression 
was  then  so  deep  that  it  could  not  be  effaced  in  maturity. 
The  boy  in  Stevenson  survived,  instead  of  dying  when 
the  man  was  bom. 

The  art  of  play-writing,  like  the  art  of  story-telling, 
and,  indeed,  like  all  the  other  arts,  demands  both  a 
native  gift  and  an  acquired  craft.  Its  basic  principles 
are  the  same  ever  since  the  drama  began;  but  its  im- 
mediate methods  vary  at  different  times  and  in  differ- 
ent countries.  While  every  artist  must  say  what  it  is 
given  him  to  say,  he  can  say  it  acceptably  only  by  ac- 
quiring the  method  of  speech  employed  by  his  imme- 
diate predecessors.  However  original  he  may  prove 
himself  at  the  end,  in  the  beginning  he  can  only  imitate 
the  methods  and  borrow  the  processes  and  avail  him- 
self of  the  practises  which  the  elder  craftsmen  are  em- 
ploying successfully  at  the  moment  when  he  sets  him- 
self to  learn  their  trade.  He  must — to  use  the  apt  term 
of  the  engineers — ^he  must  keep  himself  abreast  of 
"state  of  the  art."  This  is  what  the  great  dramatists 
have  ever  done;  Sophocles  follows  in  the  footsteps  of 
iEschylus,  as  Shakspere  emulates  Marlowe  and  Kyd, 
and  as  Moli^re  went  to  school  to  the  adroit  and  acro- 
batic Italian  comedians.  These  great  dramatists  were 
perfectly  content  to  begin  by  taking  over  the  patterns 
devised  by  their  immediate  predecessors  in  play- 
making,  even  if  they  were  soon  to  enlarge  these  pat- 
terns and  so  modify  them  to  suit  their  even  larger  needs. 

Now,  the  state  of  the  art  when  Stevenson  turned  to 
the  theater  was  in  accord  with  the  picture-frame  stage 

48 


o 

=5 


^ 
o. 


y. 


A    MORAL    FROM    A    TOY    THEATER 

of  to-day,  with  a  single  set  to  the  act,  and  without  the 
soHloquies  and  the  confidential  asides  to  the  audience 
which  may  then  have  been  proper  enough  on  the  apron- 
stage  of  the  eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  centuries. 
Even  in  the  lower  grade  of  playhouse,  where  rude  and 
crude  melodramas  were  performed,  the  method  and 
the  manner  of  the  *  Miller  and  His  Men'  had  long  de- 
parted. The  pleasure  that  melodrama  can  give  is 
perennial;  but  its  processes  vary  in  accord  with  the 
changing  conditions  of  the  theater.  The  door  was 
open  for  Stevenson  to  write  melodrama,  if  he  preferred 
that  species  of  play,  and  if  he  desired  to  varnish  it 
with  literature  as  he  was  to  varnish  the  police-novel 
or  mystery-story  in  the  'Wrecker.'  But  if  he  sought 
to  do  this,  he  was  bound  to  inform  himself  as  to  the 
state  of  the  art  at  the  instant  of  composition.  If  he 
shut  his  eyes  to  the  changed  conditions  of  the  theater 
since  the  'Miller  and  His  Men'  had  won  a  wide  popu- 
larity in  the  playhouse,  then  he  made  an  unpardonable 
blimder,  for  the  battle  was  lost  before  he  could  deploy 
his  forces.  He  might  have  been  forewarned  by  the 
failure  of  Charles  Lamb  in  a  like  attempt.  When 
Lamb's  Elizabethan  imitation  'John  Woodvil'  was  re- 
jected for  Drury  Lane  by  John  Philip  Kemble  as  not 
"consonant  with  the  taste  of  the  age";  its  exasperated 
author  cried:  "Hang  on  the  age!  I'll  write  for  an- 
tiquity!" But  those  who  write  for  antiquity  cannot 
complain  if  they  do  not  delight  their  contemporaries. 
It  is  to  his  contemporaries,  and  not  to  antiquity  or  to 
posterity,  that  every  true  dramatist  has  appealed. 

49 


A  BOOK  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 


IV 

And  as  Stevenson  might  have  taken  warning  from 
the  sad  fate  of  Lamb,  so  he  might  have  found  his  profit 
in  considering  the  happy  fortune  of  Victor  Hugo,  who 
also  had  a  taste  for  melodrama.  When  the  leader  of 
the  French  romanticists  felt  that  it  was  incumbent 
upon  him  to  conquer  the  theater  which  the  classicists 
held  as  their  last  stronghold,  he  was  swift  to  consider 
the  state  of  the  art.  He  sought  immediate  success 
upon  the  stage,  and  the  most  successful  plays  of  that 
period  in  France  were  the  melodramas  of  Pix^r^court, 
and  of  his  followers,  and  therefore  Hugo  sat  himself 
down  to  spy  out  the  secrets  of  their  craft.  He  made 
himself  master  of  their  methods,  and  he  put  together 
the  striking  and  startling  plots  of  'Hemani'  and  'Ruy 
Bias'  in  strict  accord  with  their  formulas,  certain  that 
he  could  varnish  with  literature  their  melodramatic 
actions.  So  ghttering  was  his  varnish,  so  briUiant  was 
his  metrical  rhetoric,  so  glowing  were  his  golden  verses, 
that  he  blinded  the  spectators  and  kept  the  most  of 
them  from  peering  beneath  at  his  arbitrary  and  arti- 
ficial skeleton  of  supporting  melodramatic  structure. 
To-day,  after  fom-score  years,  we  can  see  just  what  it 
is  that  Hugo  did;  and  his  plays,  superb  as  they  are  in 
their  lyric  adornment,  stand  revealed  as  frank  melo- 
dramas, lacking  sincerity  df  motive  and  veracity  of 
character  drawing.  But  when  Hugo  wrote  them  they 
were  in  Kemble's  phrase  "consonant  with  the  taste  of 

60 


A    MORAL    FROM    A    TOY    THEATER 

the  age/'  and  the  best  of  them  have  not  yet  worn  out 
their  welcome  in  the  theater. 

Stevenson  did  not  heed  the  warning  of  Lamb,  and 
he  did  not  profit  by  the  example  of  Hugo.  'Deacon 
Brodie'  was  bom  out  of  date;  so  was  'Admiral  Guinea'; 
and  all  the  varnish  of  Hterature  which  the  two  collab- 
orators appHed  externally  and  with  loving  solicitude 
availed  naught.  It  is  due  to  his  entanglement  in  the 
strangling  coils  of  Skeltery  that  Stevenson  did  not  take 
the  drama  seriously.  He  seemed  to  have  looked  at  it 
as  something  to  be  tossed  off  lightly  to  make  money  in 
the  interstices  of  honest  work.  In  his  stories,  long  and 
short,  he  strove  for  effect,  no  doubt,  but  he  was  bent 
also  on  achieving  sincerity  and  veracity.  In  his  plays 
he  made  httle  effort  for  either  sincerity  or  veracity,  so 
far  at  least  as  his  plot  was  concerned;  and  he  thought 
he  could  lift  these  concoctions  to  the  level  of  Hterature 
by  the  polish  of  his  dialog,  and  by  qualities  applied  on 
the  outside  instead  of  being  developed  from  the  inside. 
He  seems  to  have  beHeved  that  in  the  drama,  at  least, 
he  could  attain  beauty  by  constructing  his  ornament 
instead  of  by  ornamenting  his  construction,  ignoring  or 
ignorant  of  the  fact  that  in  the  drama,  the  construc- 
tion, if  only  it  be  solid  enough,  and  four  square  to  all 
the  winds  that  blow,  needs  no  ornament  and  is  most 
impressive  in  its  stark  simplicity. 

In  his  boyhood  Goethe  had  also  played  with  a  toy 
theater,  and  it  was  a  puppet-show  piece  which  first 
called  his  attention  to  the  mighty  theme  of  his  supreme 
poem;   but  the  great  German  poet,  captivated  as  he 

51 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

may  have  been  by  his  youthful  experience,  was  able  in 
his  manhood  to  free  himself  from  its  shackles.  He 
came  in  time  to  have  a  profound  insight  into  the  prin- 
ciples of  dramatic  art,  and  of  the  dramaturgic  craft. 
In  his  old  age  he  talked  about  the  theater  freely  and 
frequently  to  Eckermann;  and  there  are  few  of  his 
utterances  which  do  not  furnish  food  for  reflection. 
Here  is  one  of  them: 

Writing  for  the  stage  is  something  peculiar;  and  he  who 
does  not  understand  it  had  better  leave  it  alone.  Every  one 
thinks  that  an  interesting  fact  will  appear  interesting  on  the 
boards — nothing  of  the  kind  I  Things  may  be  very  pretty  to 
read,  and  very  pretty  to  think  about;  but  as  soon  as  they  are 
put  upon  the  stage  the  effect  is  quite  different;  and  that  which 
has  charmed  us  in  the  closet  will  probably  fall  flat  on  the  boards. 
.  .  .  Writing  for  the  stage  is  a  trade  that  one  must  understand, 
and  requires  a  talent  that  one  must  possess.  Both  are  uncom- 
mon, and  where  they  are  not  combined,  we  have  scarcely  any 
good  result.  ' 

That  Stevenson  had  the  native  gift  of  the  dramatist 
is  undisputable,  and  Sir  Arthur  Pinero  in  his  lecture 
was  able  to  make  this  clear.  But  "writing  for  the 
stage  is  also  a  trade  that  one  must  acquire";  and  when 
Stevenson  sought  to  acquire  it  he  apprenticed  himself 
to  Skelt  not  to  Sardou,  to  Redington  and  Pollock,  not 
to  Augier  and  Dumas. 

(1914.) 

P.  S. — After  the  publication  of  this  paper  in  Scrib- 
ner^s  Magazine,  a  friendly  reader  in  Great  Britain  was 

52 


^ 


PM 


o 


A    MORAL    FROM    A   TOY    THEATER 

kind  enough  to  copy  out  for  me  this  Skeltian  lyric, 
which  appeared  in  the  London  Fun  in  1868,  and  which 
was  probably  rimed  by  Henry  S.  Leigh: 

AN  EARLY  STAGE 

Ah  me  I  since  first,  long,  long  ago, 

I  learned  to  love  the  British  stage. 
It  has — or  I  have — altered  so, 

It  scarce  receives  my  patronage ! 
Where  are  the  villain's  spangled  tabs. 

His  cloak,  his  ringlets,  and  his  belt? 
Where  are  his  scowls,  his  growls,  his  stabs. 

As  shown  of  old  by  Park  and  Skelt  ? 

Once  was  I  manager  myself. 

And  played  the  'Miller  and  his  Men'; 
My  company — ah,  happy  elf ! 

I  had  no  trouble  with  them  then — 
They  never  sulked,  forgot  their  lines. 

Threw  up  their  parts,  or  asked  for  "gelt" — 
For  as  the  reader  p'r'aps  divines — 

I  got  them  all  of  Park  and  Skelt. 

I  stuck  them  on,  and  cut  them  out, 

I  painted  them  with  colors  bright; 
I  scattered  tinsel-specks  about. 

And  made  them  things  of  beauty,  quite — 
Not  joys  forever — ne'ertheless. 

They've  vanished  just  as  snowflakes  melt. 
None  can  restore  the  bliss,  I  guess, 

I  once  derived  from  Park  and  Skelt. 

How  I  revered  the  artist's  skill 
Who  did  my  heroes  represent — 
53 


A   BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

With  scowls  the  very  soul  to  thrill — 
With  one  leg  straight  and  one  leg  bent  I 

I  loved  his  ladies  full  of  grace, 

And  on  their  beauties  fondly  dwelt: — 

My  first  pictorial  love  could  trace 
Her  pedigree  to  Park  and  Skelt. 

Ah  me  I  'tis  many  a  year  since  I 

Those  dear  old  plates — a  penny  plain 
And  two-pence  colored — did  espy; 

I  ne'er  shall  see  their  like  again  1 
The  world's  with  disappointment  rife, 

And  I  have  far  too  often  felt 
That  actors  now  are  less  like  life 

Than  those  I  bought  of  Park  and  Skelt ! 


54 


IV 
WHY  FIVE  ACTS  ? 


WHY  FIVE  ACTS  ? 

I 

In  the  eighteenth  century,  both  in  England  and  in 
France,  every  stately  and  ponderous  tragedy  and  every 
self-respecting  comedy  obeyed  the  obligation  imposed 
by  long  tradition  and  duly  stretched  itself  out  to  the 
full  measure  of  five  acts,  no  more  and  no  less.  It  felt 
bound  thus  to  distend  itself,  even  tho  its  theme  might 
be  far  too  frail  for  so  huge  a  frame,  and  even  tho  the 
unfortunate  author  often  found  himself  at  his  wit's 
end  to  piece  out  his  play's  end.  Any  one  who  has  had 
occasion  to  read  widely  in  the  works  of  the  eighteenth 
century  playwrights  cannot  fail  to  feel  abundant  sym- 
pathy for  the  harassed  poet  who  plaintively  called 
on  Parliament  to  pass  a  law  abolishing  fifth  acts  al- 
together. This  unduly  distressed  dramatist  was  an 
EngHshman;  but  about  the  same  time  a  Frenchman, 
weary  of  contemplating  the  frequent  emptiness  of  the 
contemporary  tragic  stage,  sarcastically  remarked  that, 
after  all,  it  must  be  very  easy  not  to  write  a  tragedy 
in  five  acts. 

Yet  if  tragedy  was  to  be  written  at  all,  it  had  to  have 
five  acts,  since  a  smaller  number  would  not  seem  pro- 
portionate to  a  truly  tragic  subject.  But  why  five 
acts?  Why  has  five  the  number  sacred  to  the  tragic 
muse?    Why  did  even  the  comic  muse  demand  it? 

57 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

Why  does  George  Meredith,  discussing  comedy;  de- 
clare that  "five  is  dignity  with  a  trailing  robe;  whereas 
one,  or  two,  or  three  acts  would  be  short  skirts,  and 
degrading."  Why  not  three  acts,  or  seven  ?  Why  was 
it  that  any  other  number  of  acts  was  unthinkable — or 
at  least  never  thought  of? 

Questions  like  these  seem  to  have  floated  before  the 
mind  of  the  Abb4  d'Aubignac,  writing  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and  he  came  very  near  putting  to 
himself  the  query  which  serves  as  a  title  for  this  chap- 
ter. "Poets  have  generally  agreed  that  all  Drammas 
regularly  should  have  neither  more  nor  less  than  Five 
Acts;  and  the  Proof  of  this  is  the  general  observation 
of  it;  but  for  the  Reason,  I  do  not  know  whether  there 
be  any  founded  in  Nature.  Rhetorick  has  this  advan- 
tage over  Poetry  in  the  Parts  of  Oration,  that  the 
Exord,  Narration,  Confirmation  and  Peroration  are 
founded  upon  a  way  of  discoursing  natural  to  all  Men. 
.  .  .  But  for  the  Five  Acts  of  the  Dranmiatick  Poem, 
they  have  not  been  framed  upon  any  sound  ground." 

That  the  division  of  a  drama  into  five  parts  was  ac- 
cepted in  every  civilized  coimtry  as  the  only  possible 
division,  seems  very  strange  indeed,  when  we  consider 
that  there  is  really  no  artistic  justification  for  it,  nor 
any  logical  necessity.  Like  every  other  work  of  art 
a  play  ought  to  have  a  single  subject,  a  clearly  defined 
topic;  in  other  words,  it  ought  to  have  Unity  of  Action. 
There  is  no  denying  that  some  of  the  greatest  artists 
have,  now  and  again,  been  tempted  to  deal  with  two 
themes  at  the  same  time,  combining  these  aa  best  they 

58 


WHY    FIVE    ACTS? 

could  in  a  single  work  at  the  risk  of  leaving  us  a  little 
in  doubt  as  to  their  intention;  but  in  the  immense  ma- 
jority of  acknowledged  masterpieces  the  interest  is 
carefully  centered  in  a  single  object.  In  these  mas- 
terpieces the  action  is  single  and  unswerving,  sweeping 
forward  irresistibly  to  its  inevitable  end. 

If,  therefore,  we  accept  the  Unity  of  Action  as  a 
general  rule,  binding  upon  all  artists,  we  can  hardly 
deny  that  the  most  obviously  natural  arrangement 
for  the  story  is  to  set  it  forth  in  one  act,  without  any 
intermission  or  subdivision  whatsoever — a  single  action 
in  a  single  act.  Yet  it  is  the  play  in  three  acts  which 
we  are  bound  to  recognize  at  once  as  possessing  the 
ideal  form,  since  it  enables  the  dramatist  to  set  apart 
the  three  divisions,  which  Aristotle  declared  to  be  es- 
sential to  a  well-constructed  tragedy — the  beginning, 
the  middle,  and  the  end — each  presented  in  an  act  of 
its  own.  To  put  a  play  into  more  than  three  acts  is 
possible  only  by  halving  one  or  another  of  these  three 
essential  parts.  In  a  four-act  play,  the  beginning  may 
be  spHt  into  two  acts;  and  in  a  five-act  play  the  middle 
may  also  be  subdivided. 

The  logic  of  the  three-act  form,  and  the  convenience 
of  it  also,  are  so  obvious  that  ever  since  the  tyranny 
of  the  Procrustean  framework  in  five  acts  was  abolished 
in  the  middle  years  of  the  nineteenth  century,  prac- 
tical playwrights  of  all  countries  have  favored  it  more 
and  more.  The  young  Dumas  used  it  in  his  later  plays, 
and  so  did  Ibsen,  that  consummate  master  of  stage- 
craft, emancipated  from  empty  traditions,  but  profiting 

59 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

shrewdly  by  every  available  device  of  his  immediate 
predecessors.  If  the  fom'-act  form  is  also  popular 
to-day,  this  seems  to  be  because  the  modern  dramatist, 
intending  a  play  in  three  acts,  finds  himself  forced  by 
sheer  press  of  matter,  to  subdivide  one  of  the  essential 
members,  as  Sir  Arthur  Pinero  had  to  do  in  the  'Second 
Mrs.  Tanqueray'  and  Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones  in  the 
'Liars.'  Even  the  opera,  which  liked  the  larger  frame- 
work of  five  acts  when  Scribe  was  writing  librettos  for 
Hal^vy  and  Meyerbeer,  is  now  content  with  only  three, 
since  Wagner  revealed  his  skill  as  a  hbrettist. 

It  is  true  that  Freytag,  in  his  sadly  old-fashioned 
treatise  on  'Technic  of  the  Drama,'  accepted  without 
cavil  the  five-act  form,  and  even  attempted  to  justify 
it  by  asserting  that  there  are  in  fact  five  divisions  of  a 
tragic  action.  He  symbolized  the  arrangement  of  a 
drama  in  a  pyramidal  structure,  declaring  that  it 
ascends  from  the  Introduction  to  the  Climax,  and  then 
descends  to  the  Catastrophe.  Obviously  these  are 
only  different  terms  for  the  beginning,  the  middle,  and 
the  end.  But  he  vainly  imagined  two  other  members, 
the  Rise,  which  intervenes  between  the  Introduction 
and  the  Climax,  and  the  Fall,  which  he  inserted  be- 
tween the  Climax  and  the  Catastrophe.  Obviously, 
again,  this  is  an  explanation  after  the  event;  and  it 
seems  to  have  its  origin  solely  in  his  acceptance  of  the 
five-act  form.  And  Freytag  was  forced  to  abandon  his 
own  theory  when  he  considered  honestly  certain  of  the 
masterpieces  of  the  modem  drama.  He  admitted  it 
to  be  "impossible  that  the  single  acts  should  correspond 

60 


WHY    FIVE    ACTS? 

entirely  to  the  five  great  divisions  of  the  action."  He 
asserted  that  "in  the  Rising  Action,  the  first  stage  was 
usually  in  the  first  act,  the  last  sometimes  in  the  third; 
of  the  Falling  Action  the  beginning  and  the  end  were 
sometimes  taken  in  the  third  and  fifth  acts."  Yet  he 
failed  to  see  that  if  he  made  this  admission,  he  cut  the 
ground  from  under  his  feet,  and  that  there  was  no  longer 
any  acceptable  reason  for  his  insistence  upon  the  five- 
act  form. 

Freytag  had  no  doubt  at  all  as  to  the  necessity  of 
the  division  into  five  acts.  He  received  it  with  blind 
faith,  as  tho  it  had  been  prescribed  by  divine  authority. 
Yet  if  he  had  chosen  to  explore  the  early  history  of  the 
drama  in  his  own  tongue,  he  would  have  found  Hans 
Sachs  sometimes  extending  his  plays  into  six  acts,  and 
even  into  seven.  And  if  he  had  cared  to  consider  the 
drama  of  the  Spaniards  he  would  have  seen  that  the 
most  of  the  plays  of  Calderon  are  in  three  acts — a  divi- 
sion which  the  great  dramatic  poet  of  Spain  had  taken 
over,  as  he  had  taken  over  so  much  else,  from  his  mas- 
terful predecessor,  Lope  de  Vega.  In  his  interesting 
and  illuminating  little  treatise  on  the  art  of  writing 
plays.  Lope  de  Vega  gave  the  credit  of  estabhshing  the 
three-act  form  to  Virues.  Plays  had  previously  been 
written  in  four  acts;  as  Lope  puts  it  pleasantly:  "The 
drama  had  gone  on  all  fours,  like  a  child,  and  truly  it 
was  then  in  its  infancy." 

Freytag  ignored  or  was  ignorant  of  Hans  Sachs  and 
Calderon.  His  mind  was  fixed  on  Goethe  and  on 
Schiller,  altho  his  vision  also  included  Shakspere,  upon 

61 


A    BOOK   ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

whom  the  two  Geraian  poets  had  more  or  less  modeled 
themselves.  The  tradition  of  the  five-act  form  might 
not  obtain  in  the  earliest  German  drama,  as  it  did  not 
obtain  in  the  Spanish;  but  it  was  firmly  established  in 
the  later  German  drama,  in  the  English,  and  in  the 
French.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  later  Germans  de- 
rived it  from  the  French  and  the  English;  but  where 
did  the  French  and  the  English  get  it?  Where  could 
they  get  it?  No  such  division  existed  in  the  medieval 
drama,  in  the  mysteries  and  in  the  miracle-plays,  out 
of  which  the  drama  of  every  modern  language  has  been 
developed.  No  such  division  existed  in  the  Greek 
drama,  which  has  served  as  a  standard  and  as  a  stimu- 
lus to  the  drama  of  every  modern  Hterature.  A  Greek 
tragedy  was  represented  without  any  intermission  in  a 
single,  long  unbroken  act;  and  if  a  sequence  of  three 
plays  was  sometimes  performed,  one  after  another,  on 
the  same  day,  and  dealing  with  successive  periods  of 
the  same  story,  this  trilogy  might  suggest  a  division 
into  three  parts.  Nor  is  any  hint  of  the  duty  of  divid- 
ing a  tragedy  into  five  parts  to  be  discovered  anywhere 
in  Aristotle. 

II 

And  yet  we  must  go  back  to  the  Greek  theater  if  we 
want  to  see  why  it  is  that  the  'Femmes  Savantes'  of 
MoH^re  and  the  'School  for  Scandal'  of  Sheridan  are 
each  of  them  in  five  acts.  But  it  is  not  from  a  Greek 
that  we  get  the  law  that  this  division  was  obligatory 
on  all  self-respecting  dramatists;  it  is  from  a  Roman, 

62 


WHY    FIVE    ACTS? 

writing  at  a  time  when  the  drama  of  his  own  language 
had  been  ousted  from  the  stage  by  pantomimic  spec- 
tacle and  by  gladiatorial  combat.  It  is  Horace,  who, 
in  his  epistle  on  the  art  of  poetry,  declares  the  neces- 
sity of  five  acts: 

Ne  brevior,  neu  sit  quinto  productior  actu 
Fabula  quae  posci  vult  et  spectata  reponi. 

Sir  Theodore  Martin  rendered  this  in  an  EngUsh 
rimed  couplet,  which  does  not  completely  convey  the 
meaning  of  the  two  Latin  lines,  but  which  will  serve  to 
show  the  rigidity  of  the  rule  laid  down  by  the  Roman 
poet: 

Five  acts  a  play  must  have,  nor  more  nor  less, 
To  keep  the  stage  and  have  a  marked  success. 

But  this  stiU  leaves  us  groping  in  the  dark.  Why 
did  Horace  declare  this  law?  What  warrant  had  he? 
What  put  the  idea  into  his  head  ?  These  are  questions 
answered  by  a  French  scholar,  M.  Weil;  in  one  of  his 
ingenious  and  learned  'fitudes  sur  le  Drame  Antique,' 
he  explains  that  Horace  derived  much  of  his  theory  of 
the  poetic  art  from  the  Alexandrian  critics,  and  more 
particularly  from  the  writings  of  a  certain  Neopto- 
lemus  of  Parium.  Probably  the  Alexandrian  authors 
of  tragedy  had  been  led  to  adopt  a  division  into  five 
acts  by  following  the  example  of  Euripides,  whose  prac- 
tise was  not  uniform,  but  who  tended  to  reduce  to 
four  the  number  of  the  lyric  odes  in  his  tragedies,  thus 
separating  the  purely  dramatic  passages  into  five  parts. 

63 


A   BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

In  Athens  the  drama  had  been  slowly  evolved  out 
of  the  tragic  songs;  and  in  the  surviving  tragedies  of 
^schylus,  the  earliest  of  the  three  great  dramatic  poets 
of  Greece,  we  discover  that  the  choral  odes  are  more 
abimdant  than  the  dialog  which  carries  on  the  plot. 
In  the  extant  plays  of  his  mighty  successor,  Sophocles, 
the  drama  is  seen  emerging  triumphant,  but  the  lyrical 
passages  are  still  frequent  and  important.  In  the  later 
pieces  of  Euripides,  the  third  and  most  modem  of  the 
Attic  tragedians,  we  note  that  the  drama  has  almost 
wholly  disengaged  itself  from  the  lyric  out  of  which  it 
sprang.  In  iEschylus  and  in  Sophocles  the  number  of 
choral  odes  and  the  number  of  episodes,  of  purely  dra- 
matic passages  in  dialog,  is  never  fixed,  varying  from 
play  to  play  as  the  plot  might  demand.  But  in  Eurip- 
ides the  choral  odes  are  more  detached  from  the  drama; 
beautiful  in  themselves,  they  seem  to  exist  rather  for 
their  own  sake  than  in  any  integral  relation  to  the  play 
itself.  And  apparently  Emipides  was  far  more  inter- 
ested in  his  play,  in  his  plot,  and  in  his  characters, 
than  in  these  extraneous  lyric  passages,  so  he  reduced 
them  to  the  lowest  possible  number,  generally  to  four, 
serving,  so  to  speak,  as  exquisite  interact  music,  sepa- 
rating the  pathetic  play  into  five  episodes  in  dialog. 

The  Alexandrian  tragedians  came  long  after  Eurip- 
ides, and  to  their  sophisticated  taste  his  pathetic  and 
emotional  plays  appealed  far  more  than  the  austerer 
and  manlier  masterpieces  of  his  two  great  predeces- 
sors. Apparently  they  accepted  his  form  as  final;  they 
may  even  have  left  out  the  choruses  altogether;  and 

64 


WHY    FIVE    ACTS? 

then  their  tragedies  had  five  separate  episodes — in 
other  words,  five  acts.  It  is  these  lost  Alexandrian 
tragedies,  composed  in  the  decadent  days  of  the  Greek 
drama,  which  seem  to  have  served  as  the  model  for 
Seneca,  the  eloquent  rhetorician — even  tho  he  fre- 
quently took  over  the  theme  and  often  more  or  less  of 
the  structure  of  certain  of  the  dramas  of  Euripides. 

The  tragedies  of  Seneca  are  to  be  considered  rather 
as  dramatic  poems  than  as  poetic  dramas,  since  they 
were  intended  not  really  for  performance  by  actors, 
in  a  theater,  before  an  audience,  but  for  recitation  by 
a  single  elocutionist  in  a  private  house — ^much  as  a 
professional  reader  of  our  own  time  might  recite  un- 
aided a  more  or  less  dramatic  poem  by  Shelley  or  Byron 
or  Browning.  Coming  long  after  Horace,  Seneca  im- 
hesitatingly  accepted  all  of  the  restrictions  insisted 
upon  by  the  Latin  lyrist — including  the  piurely  academic 
limitation  of  the  number  of  speakers  taking  part  in  any 
dialog  to  three,  a  limitation  absolutely  absurd  in  a 
poem  not  intended  for  actual  acting  and  not  forced  to 
conform  to  the  accidental  conditions  of  the  Attic  stage. 
Obeying  also  the  other  rule  which  he  found  in  Horace's 
codification  of  the  laws  of  dramatic  poetry,  the  His- 
pano-Roman  rhetorician  was  careful  always  to  cut  up 
his  play  into  five  parts.  But  he  saw  his  profit  in  re- 
taining the  chorus,  since  this  could  be  made  to  serve 
as  the  appropriate  mouthpiece  for  the  elaborate  pas- 
sages of  elocutionary  splendor  in  which  he  delighted. 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  Italian  scholars 
of  the  Renascence  followed  the  precept  of  Horace  and 

65 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

the  practise  of  Seneca.  They  were  far  more  at  home 
in  Latin  than  they  were  in  Greek;  and  they  could 
hardly  help  reading  into  the  literature  of  Athens  what 
they  were  already  famihar  with  in  the  authors  of 
Rome.  To  them  Seneca  was  as  imposing  as  Sophocles, 
and  Horace  was  almost  as  weighty  as  Aristotle.  So  it 
is  that  Scaliger  and  Mintumo  prescribe  five  acts,  and 
that  Castelvetro  (always  more  practical  in  his  point 
of  view)  points  out  that  poets  seem  to  have  found  the 
five-act  form  most  suitable.  When  an  ItaHan  scholar- 
poet  turned  from  criticism  to  creation,  the  tragedies  he 
conscientiously  composed  obeyed  all  the  rules,  and  his 
dramatic  poems  were  as  academic  as  those  of  Seneca, 
in  that  they  were  intended  not  for  production  by  pro- 
fessional actors  in  a  regular  theater  before  spectators 
who  had  paid  their  way  in,  but  only  for  an  occasional 
performance  by  the  author  himself  assisted  by  a  few 
of  his  friends  before  a  Httle  group  of  cultivated  admirers 
of  antiquity,  contemptuous  of  the  real  public.  These 
soulless  dramatic  poems,  devised  for  declamation  by 
amateurs  before  a  gathering  of  dilettants,  are  now 
perceived  to  be  merely  Uterary  curiosities,  having  Httle 
connection  with  the  real  drama  made  for  the  regular 
theater  and  its  myriad-minded  body  of  playgoers. 

Just  as  the  Italian  dramatic  poems  were  imitations 
of  Seneca,  so  the  French  dramatic  poems,  composed  a 
little  later,  were  imitations  of  these  Italians,  and  also 
of  Seneca,  more  or  less  indirectly.  They  were  the  imi- 
tations of  an  imitation,  aping  the  outward  form  of  the 
drama,  but  empty  of  all  genuine  dramatic  spirit,  arti- 

66 


WHY    FIVE    ACTS? 

ficial  in  passion  and  high-flown  in  rhetoric.  And  there 
are  early  EngHsh  attempts  at  this  same  sort  of  academic 
tragedy,  more  imitative  still,  since  we  can  see  in  them 
the  commingled  influence  of  the  French  and  of  the 
Italians  immediately,  and  also  of  the  remoter  Seneca, 
whom  they  revered  as  the  exemplar  of  true  tragedy. 
Such  a  play  is  'Gorboduc,'  belauded  by  the  scholarly 
Sidney — and  even  on  one  occasion  acted,  by  main 
strength.  In  all  of  these  imitations,  English  and 
French  and  Italian,  we  find  the  stately  chorus  abound- 
ing in  lofty  rhetoric ;  and  we  find  also,  and  always,  the 
division  into  five  acts.  But  in  the  folk-theater,  which 
the  scholar-poets  scorned,  and  out  of  which  the  Hving 
drama  was  to  be  developed,  there  is  no  trace  of  any 
division  into  acts.  In  the  mysteries  and  the  miracle- 
plays,  and  in  the  chronicle-plays  which  grew  out  of 
them,  there  are  numberless  episodes,  each  complete 
in  itself,  and  never  combined  artificially  into  acts. 
The  composer  of  any  one  of  these  folk-dramas  con- 
ceived his  story  as  a  continuous  narrative  shown  in 
action;  and  he  gave  no  thought  to  the  number  of 
divisions,  of  episodes,  of  separate  scenes,  or  of  acts 
that  it  might  seem  to  have. 

ni 

Tragedy  has  ever  been  held  to  be  more  elevated  than 
comedy  and  more  worthy;  and  comedy  has  continually 
accepted  the  conditions  appropriate  to  tragedy.  Since 
the  dignity  of  tragedy  demanded  a  division  into  five 

67 


A   BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

acts,  comedy  was  also  subjected  to  the  same  rule;  and 
this  was  done  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  plays  of  Plau- 
tus  and  Terence  (composed  long  before  Horace  codi- 
fied his  advice  to  intending  poets)  were  not  divided 
into  actS;  if  we  may  judge  by  the  earliest  of  the  sur- 
viving manuscripts.  So  it  is  that  we  find  the  scholarly 
authors  of  the  two  earliest  of  English  comedies,  *  Ralph 
Roister  Bolster'  and  ^Gammer  Gurton's  Needle/ 
knowing  what  was  expected  of  them,  and  giving  the 
five-act  form  to  both  of  these  amusing  plays.  But 
these  two  comedies,  almost  contemporary  as  they  are 
with  the  academic  and  undramatic  tragedy  of  'Gor- 
boduc,'  are  far  superior  to  it  in  adaptabihty  for  actual 
performance.  They  are  not  intended  only  to  be  re- 
cited; they  can  be  acted  easily  and  profitably.  As 
we  analyze  them  we  see  that  the  structural  complexity 
may  be  derived  from  the  comic  dramas  of  Plautus  and 
Terence,  but  that  the  inner  spirit  is  that  of  the  Eng- 
lish folk-theater,  of  the  robust  medieval  farce-writers, 
of  the  unknown  humorist  who  has  left  us  the  laugh- 
able and  veracious  scene  of  Mak  and  the  Shepherds. 

Scholars  as  they  were,  the  authors  of  these  two  com- 
edies did  not  scorn  the  primitive  plays  of  the  plain 
people  of  their  own  time.  They  did  not  despise  the 
impretending  folk-drama  which  was  then  pleasing  the 
populace;  in  fact,  they  took  stock  of  it,  and  found  their 
profit  in  so  doing.  They  saw  that  to  be  raised  up  to 
the  level  of  Hterature  it  needed  only  to  be  chastened 
and  stiffened.  They  accepted  the  living  tradition  of 
play-making  as  it  came  down  to  them,  and  in  accord 

68 


WHY   FIVE    ACTS? 

with  this  tradition  they  wrought  their  humorous  fan- 
tasies, adding  the  higher  polish  and  the  more  adroit 
plot  which  they  had  learned  to  appreciate  in  the  Latin 
comic  dramatists.  They  accepted  the  native  play, 
bare  as  it  was,  and  they  enriched  it  by  bestowing  on  it 
as  much  as  it  could  carry  of  the  finer  art  of  the  Romans. 
Thus  it  is  that  the  authors  of  'Ralph  Roister  Doister' 
and  of  'Gammer  Gurton's  Needle'  may  have  pointed 
out  the  path  of  progress  to  the  author  of  the  '  Comedy 
of  Errors,'  whereas  the  authors  of '  Gorboduc,'  contemp- 
tuously rejecting  the  folk-theater  of  their  own  day,  and 
idly  copying  the  classicist  imitations  of  the  Italians, 
thereby  relinquished  whatever  direct  influence  they 
might  have  had  upon  the  growth  of  tragedy  in  England. 
Both  'Ralph  Roister  Doister'  and  'Gammer  Gur- 
ton's  Needle'  were  probably  written  for  performance 
by  college  boys,  and  they  have  not  a  Httle  of  the  brisk 
heartiness  and  of  the  broad  horse-play  to  which  we  are 
accustomed  in  the  college  pieces  of  to-day.  It  was  for 
performance  at  court  that  Lyly  wrote  the  most  of  his 
plays,  which  lack  the  vivacity  and  the  Hveliness  dis- 
tinguishing the  two  college  comic  dramas,  but  which 
yet  reveal  a  far  better  understandiog  of  the  drama  than 
was  possessed  by  the  authors  of  'Gorboduc'  Lyly 
again  is  careful  to  divide  his  plays  into  five  acts.  But 
his  contemporaries  Greene  and  Peele,  writing  solely 
for  the  professional  playhouses,  were  bound  by  none 
of  the  rules  which  might  be  expected  in  college  or  at 
court.  Whatever  their  own  scholarly  equipment,  when 
they  wrote  for  the  professional  players,  they  followed 

69 


A   BOOK   ABOUT   THE   THEATER 

unhesitatingly  the  traditions  of  the  contemporary- 
theater.  As  playwrights  they  were  the  direct  heirs  of 
the  anonymous  and  ignorant  devisers  of  the  medieval 
drama.  They  had  a  story  to  set  on  the  stage;  they 
chose  a  succession  of  more  or  less  effective  episodes, 
and  they  carelessly  cast  these  into  dialog,  with  little 
thought  of  form  or  of  construction.  Never  do  their 
plays  contain  matter  enough  for  five  full  acts;  and  we 
may  be  certain  that  no  such  framework  was  ever  in 
the  mind  of  either  of  these  dramatic  poets.  In  the 
original  editions  of  their  pieces  we  find  no  separation 
into  acts  and  scenes;  and  if  this  needless  and  mislead- 
ing subdivision  is  found  in  later  editions  it  is  the  doing 
of  misguided  editors. 

In  what  is  accepted  as  the  earliest  edition  of  Kyd's 
'Spanish  Tragedy/  the  most  widely  popular  of  all  the 
pre-Shaksperian  plays,  the  text  is  actually  divided  into 
four  acts.  But  this  division  is  not  structural;  it  is 
almost  accidental,  as  tho  it  was  an  afterthought,  in- 
serted at  the  last  moment  into  the  copy  intended  for 
the  printer,  and  never  in  the  mind  of  the  playwright 
himself  when  he  was  preparing  the  prompt-book  for 
the  actors;  and  Shakspere,  who  followed  Kyd  in  more 
ways  than  one,  apparently  followed  him  in  this  also. 
In  the  folio  edition  of  his  plays,  published  after  his 
death,  a  division  into  five  acts  has  been  made;  but  the 
task  has  not  been  accomplished  any  too  skilfully — for 
example,  the  second  act  of  'King  John'  has  but  eighty 
lines,  and  here  the  division  is  into  four  acts  only.  The 
suggestion  has  been  proffered  that  it  was,  perhaps,  left 

70 


WHY    FIVE    ACTS? 

to  the  printers  to  do,  the  influence  of  Ben  Jonson 
having  been  powerful  enough  to  estabHsh  the  theory 
that  a  self-respecting  dramatist  would  never  fail  to 
cast  his  tragedies  in  the  five-act  form.  It  is  to  be  noted 
also  that  no  division  into  acts  is  to  be  found  in  the 
quarto  editions  published  in  Shakspere's  lifetime;  and 
this  is  very  significant  since  these  quartos  seem  to  have 
been  piratical  copies  from  shorthand  notes  taken  sur- 
reptitiously in  the  theater,  thus  recording  the  actual 
conditions  of  performance. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  Shakspere  conceived  his 
plays  in  accordance  with  any  such  subdivisions. 
Some  of  them,  the  'Comedy  of  Errors'  for  one,  which 
can  be  acted  in  the  space  of  an  hour  and  a  quarter, 
are  far  too  slight  for  so  huge  a  framework.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  several  appearances  of  Chorus  punctu- 
ate 'Henry  V*  into  five  divisions,  apparently  an  in- 
tentional conformity  to  the  Horatian  rule.  Of  course, 
there  were  generally  several  intermissions  in  the 
Elizabethan  performance  of  a  play,  altho  the  resulting 
divisions  were  not  necessarily  five;  and  it  is  noteworthy 
that  Shakspere  makes  Jaques  declare  that  man's  life 
had  seven  acts. 

IV 

The  fact  is  that  Shakspere  was  a  professional  play- 
wright, and  that  he  had  no  merely  academic  theories. 
In  composing  his  plays  he  followed  unhesitatingly  the 
principles  that  had  guided  his  inunediate  predecessors. 
He  was  seeking  ever  to  give  the  playgoing  pubUc  what 

71 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

it  had  been  accustomed  to  enjoy  in  the  theater,  better 
in  degree,  no  doubt,  but  the  same  in  kind.  Like  these 
predecessors,  he  kept  to  the  traditions  inherited  from 
the  medieval  mysteries;  and  he  thought  in  terms,  not 
of  acts  and  of  scenes,  as  a  modem  playwright  is  forced 
to  do,  but  of  a  continuous  narrative  shown  in  action. 
In  doing  so  he  resembles  Herodotus,  whose  history  has 
also  been  cut  up  by  later  editors,  dividing  it  into  nine 
books,  altho,  as  Professor  Bury  has  reminded  us,  "such 
divisions  had  not  yet  come  into  fashion"  in  the  his- 
torian's own  day.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
Shakspere  would  have  approved  of  the  attempt  of  the 
editors  of  the  foHo  to  subdivide  his  plays,  each  into 
five  acts.  There  is  every  reason  to  suppose  that  he 
would  have  been  greatly  annoyed  if  he  could  have 
foreseen  the  way  in  which  later  editors  have  chosen 
further  to  chop  up  the  acts  into  an  infinity  of  scenes. 
Nowadays,  we  have  been  so  accustomed  to  read 
Shakspere  in  one  or  another  of  the  trim  and  tidy  mod- 
em editions,  with  a  wanton  division  into  acts  and  into 
scenes,  each  of  which  indicates  a  change  of  place,  and 
each  of  which  seems  to  suggest  a  change  of  scenery, 
that  it  is  only  by  a  resolute  effort  of  the  will  that  we 
are  able  to  shake  off  the  prepossessions  derived  from 
this  imf ortunate  and  confusing  presentation  of  his  text. 
Probably  even  to-day  a  majority  of  those  who  enjoy 
reading  Shakspere  would  be  surprised  to  be  told  that 
there  is  no  warrant  whatever  for  these  alleged  changes 
of  scene,  and  for  these  superabundant  subdivisions  of 
hifi  story.    Many  of  these  readers  would  be  taken 

72 


WHY   FIVE    ACTS? 

aback  by  the  unexpected  discovery  that  all  this  cut- 
ting up  of  Shakspere's  text  was  the  work  of  his  com- 
mentators, with  Howe  at  the  head  of  the  procession. 
Some  of  these  readers  would  feel  as  tho  they  were  de- 
prived of  a  precious  possession,  if  they  had  only  an 
edition  in  which  all  this  useless  machinery  was  swept 
away. 

And  yet  this  is  just  the  edition  which  is  demanded 
by  the  present  state  of  Shaksperian  scholarship,  and 
which  is  now  made  possible  by  our  new  understanding 
of  the  Elizabethan  theater,  with  its  rude  platform 
thrust  out  into  the  yard,  so  different  from  our  modem 
theaters,  in  which  the  stage  is  withdrawn  behind  a 
picture-frame.  The  Tudor  platform-stage  is  wholly 
unlike  the  picture-frame  stage  of  to-day;  but  it  is  very 
like  the  "pageant,"  or  the  scaffold  on  which  the  mys- 
teries and  miracle-plays  were  presented.  It  was  to  the 
simple  conditions  of  his  semi-medieval  theater  that 
Shakspere  adjusted  himself,  rude  as  those  conditions 
may  now  appear  to  us  who  are  accustomed  to  the  sump- 
tuous picturesqueness  of  our  own  luxuriant  playhouses. 

In  accepting  the  theater  as  he  found  it,  and  in  avail- 
ing himself  of  all  its  possibilities,  such  as  they  were, 
Shakspere  showed  his  usual  common  sense.  Only  by 
striving  to  reconstruct  for  ourselves  in  our  mind's  eye, 
as  it  were,  the  playhouse  where  he  plied  his  trade  and 
earned  his  Hving,  can  we  come  to  any  adequate  appre- 
ciation of  his  art,  of  his  craftsmanship  as  a  playwright, 
of  his  dramaturgic  skill.  And  in  any  honest  effort  to 
imderstand  how  his  mighty  dramas  were  originally 

73 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

produced  by  himself  and  by  his  fellow  actors  in  the 
round  0  of  the  wooden  Globe  Theater,  unroofed  and 
unlighted  except  by  the  dingy  daylight  of  northern 
Europe,  we  need  always  to  keep  fast  in  our  mind  the 
fact  that  all  preconceptions  are  false  that  may  be  de- 
rived from  our  memory  of  latter-day  performances  in 
theaters  of  a  type  which  the  Elizabethan  dramatists 
could  not  foresee,  and  of  which  the  conditions  are  often 
the  exact  opposite  of  those  they  accepted  without  hesi- 
tation. That  is  to  say,  the  most  profitable  way  to  re- 
construct mentally  the  Tudor  playhouse  is  to  banish 
from  our  minds  every  impression  made  by  our  modern 
theater,  with  its  elaborate  complexity,  and  to  study 
out  for  ourselves  the  simple  circumstances  of  perform- 
ance in  the  Middle  Ages.  And  as  a  first  step  toward 
the  proper  standpoint,  we  must  cast  out  our  tradi- 
tional behef  that  Shakspere  always  accepted  the  classi- 
cist formula  of  five  acts,  proclaimed  by  Horace,  and 
employed  by  Seneca.  That  he  did  use  it  in  one  or  two 
plays  seems  indisputable,  and  he  may  very  well  have 
employed  it  in  a  few  others,  but  there  is  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  he  would  have  submitted  himself  any  more 
willingly  to  the  rule  of  five  acts  than  he  did  to  the  rule 
of  the  three  unities. 

It  may  be  doubted  also  whether  not  a  few  dramatists, 
writing  later  than  Shakspere,  would  not  have  done  well 
to  claim  the  liberty  he  and  Lope  de  Vega  chose  to 
exercise  at  will.  Racine,  for  one,  had  sadly  to  stretch 
his  'Athalie'  to  fill  out  the  five-act  framework  which 
he  had  blindly  accepted,  altho  he  had  earher  limited 

74 


WHY    FIVE    ACTS? 

'Esther'  to  three  acts.  Schiller,  for  another,  would 
have  gained  a  swifter  compactness  for  his  play  if  he 
had  left  out  the  needless  fifth  act  of  his  'WiUiam  Tell' 
and  rolled  his  fourth  act  into  his  third.  Victor  Hugo 
had  to  manufacture  a  fourth  act  for  his  'Ruy  Bias,'  so 
slightly  related  to  his  main  story  that  it  was  cut  out 
of  the  English  adaptation  acted  by  Fechter  and  Booth. 
Ibsen,  it  may  be  added,  composed  his  first  tragedy, 
'Catiline,'  in  three  acts,  altho  it  was  in  blank  verse, 
thus  early  revealing  his  characteristic  independence 
of  tradition. 

(1907.) 

P.  S. — Since  this  paper  was  written  I  have  found  two 
opinions  as  to  the  nimiber  of  acts  a  play  ought  to  have 
which  were  unknown  to  me  when  I  undertook  the  dis- 
cussion. The  first  is  in  the  'Dasarupa,'  the  Hindu 
treatise  on  the  craft  of  play-making:  "There  are  five 
stages  of  the  action  which  is  set  on  foot  by  those  that 
strive  after  a  result:  Beginning,  Effort,  Prospect  of 
Success,  Certainty  of  Success,  Attainment  of  the  Re- 
sult." 

The  second  is  in  the  commentary  made  by  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson  during  his  methodical  perusal  of  the 
dramas  of  the  elder  Dumas.  After  reading  'Henri  III 
et  sa  Cour,'  Stevenson  declares  that  here  in  Dumas's 
first  piece  "is  the  cloven  foot;  a  fourth  act  that  has 
no  part  or  lot  in  the  play;  a  fourth  act  that  is  a  mere 
incubus  and  interruption — that  takes  the  eye  off  the 
action,  and  between  two  spirited  and  palpitating  scenes 

75 


A   BOOK   ABOUT   THE   THEATER 

interjects  a  damned  sermon  on  the  history  of  France. 
Poor  Tribonian  had  a  sore  job  to  make  up  the  fifty 
books  of  the  Pandects;  what  was  that  to  the  labor  of 
a  dramatist  bent  on  filling  his  five  acts?  I  go  as  far 
as  this:  the  natural  division  of  the  normal  play  is 
four:  Act  I,  exposition;  Act  II,  the  problem  produced; 
Act  in,  the  problem  argued;  Act  IV,  the  way  out  of 
it." 
(1916.) 


76 


V 

DRAMATIC  COLLABORATION 


DRAMATIC  COLLABORATION 

I 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  whenever  and  wherever  the 
drama  has  flourished  most  abundantly  and  most  lux- 
uriantly, we  are  certain  to  find  a  tendency  to  collab- 
oration, to  the  partnership  of  two  authors  in  the  com- 
position of  one  play.  In  England  in  the  spacious  days 
of  good  Queen  Bess,  there  is  not  only  the  famous  asso- 
ciation of  Beaimiont  and  Fletcher,  but  also  a  host  of 
other  more  or  less  temporary  combinations,  Fletcher 
with  Shakspere  and  Massinger,  Dekker  with  Ben  Jon- 
son  and  with  Middleton.  In  Spain  Lope  de  Vega 
joined  forces  with  Montalvan  and  with  others.  In 
France  in  the  seventeenth  century  Moli^re,  once  at 
least  called  to  his  aid  Comeille  and  Quinault;  and  in 
France  again  in  the  nineteenth  century  we  find  Augier 
working  with  Sandeau  and  with  Foussier,  Scribe  work- 
ing with  Legouve,  and  with  a  score  of  others,  while 
Dumas  the  elder  was  encompassed  by  a  cloud  of  col- 
laborators, and  Dumas  the  younger  was  willing  on 
more  than  one  occasion  to  join  various  writers  in  the 
plays  which  he  included  in  the  separate  volumes  of  his 
works,  called  by  him  the  'Th^dtre  des  Autres.'  Then 
also  in  France  there  was  the  long-continued  alliance  of 
Meilhac  and  Hal^vy,  to  which  we  owe  'Froufrou'  and 

79 


A   BOOK   ABOUT   THE   THEATER 

the  'Grand  Duchess  of  G^rolstein';  and  there  was  also 
the  almost  equally  interesting  association  of  MM. 
Caillavet  and  de  Piers.  Sardou  had  one  ally  in  the 
composition  of  'Divorgons/  and  another  in  the  com- 
position of  'Madame  Sans  Gene.'  In  Great  Britain  in 
recent  years  we  have  seen  Sir  James  Barrie  and  Sir 
Arthur  Pinero  imite  in  writing  a  book  for  music;  Mr. 
Bennett  and  Mr.  Knoblauch  imite  in  writing  'Mile- 
stones'; Mr.  Granville  Barker  and  Mr.  Laurence 
Housman  unite  in  writing  'Prunella.'  And  in  the 
United  States  there  was  a  score  of  years  ago  the  steady 
collaboration  of  Mr.  Belasco  with  the  late  H.  C.  De 
Mille,  to  which  we  owe  the  'Charity  Ball'  and  the 
'Wife';  and  more  recently  Mr.  Belasco  also  has  col- 
laborated with  Mr.  John  Luther  Long  in  writing 
'Madame  Butterfly/  and  the  'Darling  of  the  Gods.' 
Mr.  Augustus  Thomas  was  once  the  partner  of  Mr. 
Clay  Greene;  Mr.  Bronson  Howard  composed  one  of 
his  latest  plays,  'Peter  Stuyvesant,  Governor  of  New 
Amsterdam,'  in  association  with  another  American 
man  of  letters;  and  Mr.  Booth  Tarkington  and  Mr. 
Harry  Leon  Wilson  were  the  co-authors  of  the  'Man 
from  Home'  and  of  half  a  dozen  other  pieces. 

While  this  prevalence  of  the  practise  of  collaboration 
in  periods  of  dramatic  productivity  is  significant,  it  is 
equally  significant  that  there  is  no  corresponding  prev- 
alence of  the  practise  of  collaboration  in  novel-writing. 
True  it  is  that  there  are  certain  fairly  well-known 
partnerships  in  the  history  of  prose  fiction — ^that  of 
Erckmann-Chatrain,  in  French,  for  instance,  and  that 

80 


DRAMATIC    COLLABORATION 

of  Besant  and  Rice  in  English.  True  it  is  that  Dickens 
and  Wilkie  Collins  were  joint  authors  of  *No  Thoro- 
fare/  and  that  Mark  Twain  and  Charles  Dudley 
Wamer  were  joint  authors  of  the  *  Gilded  Age.*  True 
it  is  also,  that  novels  have  been  written  not  only  by 
two  partners,  but  by  what  can  fairly  be  described  as  a 
syndicate  of  associated  authors,  the  'King's  Men*  by 
four,  'Six  of  One  and  Half  a  Dozen  of  the  Other'  by 
six,  and  the  'Whole  Family'  by  twelve  (including  Mr. 
Howells  and  Mr.  Henry  James,  Mrs.  Mary  E.  Wilkins 
Freeman,  and  Doctor  Henry  van  Dyke).  These  freak- 
ish conglomerates  are  sporadic  only;  they  seem  to  be 
little  better  than  Uterary  "stunts";  and  even  the  union 
of  two  writers  in  the  production  of  a  single  novel  is 
far  less  frequently  to  be  observed  than  the  imion  of 
two  writers  in  the  production  of  a  single  play.  The 
former  is  unusual,  whereas  the  latter  seems  to  be  so 
common  as  to  excite  no  comment. 

Now,  there  must  be  a  reason  for  this  difference.  If 
the  playwrights  find  it  advantageous  to  double  up, 
and  the  novelists  do  not  discover  any  profit  in  putting 
on  double  harness,  there  ought  to  be  some  evident  ex- 
planation. When  we  consider  more  carefully  the  es- 
sentially different  conditions  of  the  art  of  prose  fiction 
and  the  art  of  play-writing,  it  is  not  difficult  to  perceive 
fairly  obvious  reasons  for  the  varying  procedure  of  the 
practitioners  of  these  rival  arts,  which  may  seem  so 
much  alike,  but  which  are  really  so  very  different  in 
their  methods  and  in  their  possibiHties. 

The  French  critic  Joubert  once  asserted  that  "to 

81 


A    BOOK   ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

make  in  advance  an  exact  and  detailed  plan  is  to  de- 
prive one's  intellect  of  all  the  pleasures  of  novelty  and 
chance  meeting  during  its  execution;  it  is  to  make  this 
execution  insipid,  and  in  consequence  impossible,  in 
works  calling  for  enthusiasm  and  imagination."  This 
is  an  overstatement — ^but  it  is  not  a  misstatement — of 
a  principle  of  composition  which  is  fundamentally 
sound  in  the  writing  of  prose  fiction,  but  which  is 
fundamentally  unsound  in  the  writing  of  plays.  The 
drama  demands  a  well-built  story,  artfully  put  together, 
while  a  novel  need  not  have  a  coherent  and  compact 
plot.  Some  great  novels,  Fielding's  'Tom  Jones'  for 
one,  and  Turgenef's  'Smoke'  for  another,  have  each 
of  them  a  beautifully  articulated  structure,  and  so  has 
Mr.  Howells's  'Rise  of  Silas  Lapham,'  to  take  a  later 
example.  But  other  great  novels  are  frankly  more  or 
less  haphazard  in  their  movement,  the  'Pickwick 
Papers,'  for  instance,  and  'Tartarin  on  the  Alps,'  and 
'Huckleberry  Finn.'  And  it  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  only  a  very  few  novels  attain  to  the  severity  of 
structure,  the  regularity  of  action,  the  straightforward, 
imswerving  movement  which  we  discover  in  the  dramas 
of  a  corresponding  rank,  and  which  can  be  achieved 
only  by  making  in  advance  the  exact  and  detailed  plan 
that  Joubert  held  to  be  fatal  in  works  calling  for  en- 
thusiasm and  imagination. 

Of  course,  the  drama  can  utilize  enthusiasm  and 
imagination  quite  as  often  and  quite  as  abundantly 
as  can  prose  fiction,  but  it  must  use  these  precious 
gifts  with  a  discretion  which  is  not  imposed  upon  its 

82 


DRAMATIC    COLLABORATION 

rival.  In  a  novel  enthusiastic  imagination  may  lure 
the  story-teUer  into  a  host  of  by-paths  not  foreseen  by 
him  when  he  set  out  on  his  journey;  and  while  he  is 
adventuring  himself  in  these  by-paths,  he  may  chance 
to  encounter  characters  of  a  diverting  or  an  appealing 
personality,  whom  it  may  amuse  him  to  delineate,  and 
whom  the  readers  of  his  book  will  be  glad  to  welcome. 
But  in  a  drama  the  story-teller  is  debarred  from  these 
wanderings  from  the  straight  and  narrow  road,  and  he 
must,  perforce,  control  his  enthusiastic  imagination, 
compelling  it  to  do  its  work  within  the  rigid  limits  of 
the  artfully  devised  framework  of  the  plot. 

In  other  words,  character  is  all-important  in  prose 
fiction,  and  the  ultimate  fame  of  the  novelist  depends 
upon  his  power  of  endowing  his  creatures  with  life,  and 
upon  his  ability  to  let  them  obey  the  laws  of  their 
being  before  our  eyes.  This  must  the  playwright  also 
achieve;  but  he  has  the  added  duty  of  relating  his 
characters  intimately  to  the  main  action  of  his  drama. 
Now,  the  novelist  is  under  no  obligation  of  this  sort; 
he  appeals  not  to  a  crowd  seated  before  a  stage,  but  to 
the  solitary  reader  in  the  study;  and  experience  shows 
that  solitary  readers  do  not  insist  upon  the  soHdity 
of  structure  in  a  novel  which  the  same  individuals 
desire  and  demand  when  they  betake  themselves  to  the 
theater.  The  novel-reader  may  be  satisfied  by  char- 
acters who  do  not  know  their  own  minds,  and  who  are 
merely  exhibited  and  put  through  their  paces,  without 
having  any  vital  relation  to  the  story,  even  if  there  is 
anything  which  can  fairly  be  called  a  story — and  in 

83 


A   BOOK   ABOUT   THE   THEATER 

some  novels  of  high  repute,  in  Sterne's  *  Sentimental 
Jomney/  for  example,  and  in  Anatole  France's  'His- 
toire  Contemporaine,'  each  of  them  extending  over 
several  volmnes,  there  is  little  or  no  story,  no  main 
thread,  no  pretense  of  a  plot. 

n 

Here,  thfen,  is  the  fatal  difference  between  a  novel 
and  a  play;  a  novel  may  have  a  plot,  but  a  plot  is  not 
necessary,  and  it  can  get  along  with  a  minimum  of 
story;  whereas  a  play  must  have  a  plot,  skilfully  articu- 
lated, even  if  the  skeleton  is  beautifully  covered;  it 
must  have  a  story  peopled  by  persons  knowing  their 
own  minds,  a  story  set  in  action  by  a  dominating  will, 
which  determines  the  successive  episodes  of  the  action. 
As  the  making  of  a  plot,  as  the  putting  together  of 
a  supporting  skeleton  of  action,  calls  for  dexterity  of 
workmanship,  for  ingenuity  of  resource,  for  adroit- 
ness of  construction,  for  the  most  careful  consideration 
of  the  means  whereby  the  end  is  to  be  obtained,  two 
heads  are  often  better  than  one,  because  the  partners 
have  to  talk  the  thing  out  to  its  uttermost  details  be- 
fore they  decide  upon  the  straight  line  which  is  the 
shortest  distance  between  two  points.  The  technic 
of  play-making  is  more  exacting  than  the  technic  of 
novel-writing,  and  it  requires  imperatively  the  exact 
and  detailed  plan  which  Joubert  held  to  be  hampering 
to  enthusiasm  and  imagination.  Scott,  for  example, 
as  he  tells  us  himself,  began  more  than  one  of  his  novels 

84 


DRAMATIC    COLLABORATION 

not  knowing  what  he  was  going  to  put  into  it,  and  not 
knowing  from  day  to  day,  as  he  was  writing,  what  his 
ultimate  goal  would  be.  But  no  pla3rwright,  however 
happy-go-lucky  in  his  tendencies,  has  ever  dared  to 
begin  a  play  before  he  knew  with  absolute  certainty 
how  he  intended  to  end  it.  In  the  drama  we  insist 
upon  a  straightforward  and  unswerving  action;  the 
end  is  implied  in  the  beginning,  and  the  beginning  is 
only  what  that  end  makes  necessary. 

As  the  technic  of  the  drama  is  exacting,  it  needs  to 
be  acquired  by  a  period  of  apprenticeship;  and  here  is 
another  of  the  indisputable  advantages  of  collabora- 
tion. The  more  inexperienced  of  the  two  collaborators 
is  taken  into  the  studio,  so  to  speak,  of  the  more  expert, 
and  he  thereby  learns  the  secrets  of  stage-craft  in  the 
best  possible  way,  by  applying  them  under  the  direction, 
or  at  the  suggestion  and  by  the  advice,  of  an  older 
practitioner,  to  whom  they  have  become  so  familiar 
that  they  are  a  second  nature,  as  it  were. 

Collaboration  is  the  best  conceivable  school  for  young 
playwrights.  It  is  impossible  to  overestimate  the  in- 
fluence of  Scribe's  multiplied  collaborations  upon  the 
drama  of  France  in  the  mid-years  of  the  nineteenth 
century;  and  almost  as  potent,  because  almost  as  wide- 
spread, was  the  iofluence  of  the  many  collaborations 
of  the  elder  Dumas.  Most  of  those  who  were  the  tem- 
porary partners  of  Scribe  and  Dumas  were  subdued  to 
their  more  powerful  associate,  and  contributed  Httle 
or  nothing  beyond  their  fundamental  suggestions  for 
the  several  plays,  and  their  incidental  suggestions  as 

85 


A    BOOK   ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

to  details  of  the  working-out.  That  is  to  say,  most  of 
the  plays  signed  by  Scribe  and  Dumas  in  partnership 
with  others  have  a  close  similarity  to  the  plays  they 
signed  alone.  But  from  this  generalization  we  may 
except  'Adrienne  Lecouvreur'  and  'Bataille  de  Dames/ 
in  which  Scribe  had  Legouv^  for  a  partner,  and  in  which 
we  find  a  greater  richness  of  character  delineation  than 
in  any  of  the  pieces  that  Scribe  composed  alone,  as  we 
find  also  a  greater  dexterity  of  construction  than  in 
any  of  the  pieces  that  Legouv^  composed  alone. 

To  the  fact  that  'Milestones'  was  written  by  Mr. 
Arnold  Bennett  and  Mr.  Edward  Knoblauch  in  con- 
junction, and  to  the  friendly  discussion  due  to  their 
working  together,  we  may  credit  the  superior  stage- 
effectiveness  of  this  play  over  the  'Kismet,'  which  Mr. 
Knoblauch  wrote  alone,  and  over  the  'Great  Adven- 
ture,' for  which  Mr.  Bennett  was  solely  responsible. 
To  the  composition  of  'Milestones'  each  of  these  two 
authors,  the  American  and  the  Englishman,  brought 
his  special  quahfications,  each  of  them  not  only  stimu- 
lating but  supplementing  the  other.  So  we  find  the 
most  famous  French  comedy  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
the  'Gendre  de  M.  Poirier,'  a  better  piece  of  work, 
more  equably  balanced  than  any  play  written  alone  by 
either  Augier  or  Sandeau. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  there  is  little 
profit  in  a  partnership  for  play-making  when  both  of 
the  associates  are  equally  inexpert,  or  when  they  were 
both  possessed  of  wrong  notions  about  the  art  of  the 
drama.    In  the  former  case  we  have  the  blind  leading 

86 


DRAMATIC    COLLABORATION 

the  blind,  and  the  most  lamentable  example  of  this  is 
the  long  forgotten  'Ah  Sin/  which  Bret  Harte  and 
Mark  Twain  combined  to  compose  that  C.  T.  Pars- 
loe  could  impersonate  the  Heathen  Chinee.  In  the 
latter  case  we  have  not  only  the  bhnd  leading  the 
blind,  but  a  perverseness  in  going  the  wrong  way,  in- 
tensified by  the  complete  sympathy  between  the  two 
associates;  and  the  most  lamentable  example  of  this 
is  the  'Deacon  Brodie'  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  and 
William  Ernest  Henley,  who  not  only  were  ignorant  of 
the  modem  technic  of  the  drama,  but  who  ignored  it 
of  set  purpose,  deliberately  going  up  a  blind  alley  de- 
spite the  plain  sign  that  there  was  no  thorofare. 

Ill 

Yet  Stevenson,  at  least,  perceived  clearly  enough 
what  ought  to  be  the  more  evident  advantages  of  col- 
laboration, that  it  focused  "two  minds  together  on  the 
stuff,"  thus  producing  "an  extraordinarily  greater  rich- 
ness of  purview,  consideration,  and  invention."  Col- 
laboration will  probably  always  produce  a  greater 
richness  of  invention,  since  each  of  the  partners  is 
likely  to  stimulate  the  other,  their  two  minds  striking 
sparks  like  flint  and  steel.  But  it  can  produce  a  greater 
richness  of  consideration  only  when  each  is  willing  both 
to  yield  and  to  oppose.  Neither  must  yield  too  easily; 
each  of  them  must  stand  out  for  his  own  suggestions; 
and  each  of  them  must  insist  on  weighing  and  measur- 
ing the  suggestions  of  his  ally.    If  they  are  too  sympa- 

87 


A   BOOK   ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

thetic,  if  their  two  hearts  beat  as  one,  then  the  advan- 
tage of  their  having  two  heads  is  diminished.  If  the 
two  partners  always  think  alike,  then  there  will  be  no 
greater  richness  of  purview. 

When  a  play  composed  by  two  of  his  friends  failed 
to  find  the  success  on  the  stage  which  had  been  antic- 
ipated for  it,  Mr.  Augustus  Thomas  made  the  shrewd 
remark  that  the  two  authors  had  probably  been  "too 
poHte  to  each  other" — ^that  is  to  say,  that  they  had  not 
insisted  upon  criticising  the  successive  suggestions 
made  by  each  in  turn.  On  the  other  hand,  the  collab- 
orators must  be  broad-minded  enough  not  to  resent 
this  necessary  criticism.  Like  any  other  partnership, 
collaboration  is  a  ticklish  experiment,  and  it  can  be 
profitable  only  when  the  two  partners  are  willing  to 
give  and  take.  They  need  more  than  usual  self-control ; 
they  must  be  able,  each  of  them,  to  preserve  his  own 
self-respect  while  full  of  regard  for  the  self-respect  of 
the  other.  It  is  not  surprising  that  the  long  collabora- 
tions of  Erckmann-Chatrain  and  of  Meilhac  and  Hal^vy 
finally  came  to  a  sudden  end  because  of  an  abrupt 
quarrel.  That  disagreement  is  likely  to  arise  out  of 
the  discussions  inherent  in  any  profitable  literary  part- 
nership is  evidenced  by  a  retort  credited  to  the  younger 
Dumas,  who  was  a  rather  authoritative  partner,  and 
who  did  not  always  succeed  in  keeping  on  good  terms 
with  those  whose  plays  he  had  bettered.  A  friend  once 
suggested  a  theme  for  a  play,  and  invited  the  collab- 
oration of  Dumas.  "But  why  should  I  wish  to  quarrel 
with  you?"  was  answer  of  the  witty  dramatist. 

88 


DRAMATIC    COLLABORATION 

Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  instance  of  self-control 
in  all  the  long  history  of  collaboration  is  that  of  Theo- 
dore Barriere,  the  author  of  the  once-famous  play  called 
the  'Marble  Heart/  one  of  the  latest  of  whose  pieces 
(adapted  by  Augustin  Daly  as  'Alixe')  was  composed 
in  collaboration  with  his  mother-in-law ! 

Sometimes  the  breach  between  the  two  partners  is 
postponed  until  after  the  play  is  completed  and  pro- 
duced. Charles  Reade  and  Tom  Taylor  joined  forces 
in  the  composition  of  the  long-popular  comedy  called 
'Masks  and  Faces,'  and  after  it  had  established  itself 
upon  the  stage,  Charles  Reade  took  its  plot  and  its 
characters  and  utiHzed  them  in  his  charming  novel, 
'Peg  WoflSngton,'  and  as  he  had  taken  the  hberty  of 
thus  making  a  private  profit  out  of  the  property  of  the 
partnership,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  Tom  Taylor 
was  distinctly  displeased.  But  Charles  Reade,  altho 
he  collaborated  with  Tom  Taylor,  with  Paul  Merritt, 
and  with  Dion  Boucicault,  was  more  or  less  deficient 
in  the  courtesy  and  consideration  that  a  man  ought 
to  possess  to  fit  him  for  partnership.  When  he  aUied 
himself  with  Dion  Boucicault  in  the  writing  of  the 
novel  of  'Foul  Play,'  the  collaborators  quarreled  so 
violently  that  they  felt  themselves  justified  in  prepar- 
ing rival  dramatizations  of  the  story  they  had  written 
in  conjunction,  so  that  London  playgoers  had  the  op- 
portunity of  choosing  between  two  different  theatrical 
adaptations  of  the  same  tale. 

When  the  two  partners  are  courteous  to  each  other 
but  not  too  yielding,  when  they  are  sympathetic  but 

89 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

not  too  much  alike  in  their  characteristics  and  quali- 
fications, when  each  of  them  supplements  the  weaker 
points  of  the  other,  then  collaboration  ought  to  result 
in  plays  of  more  variety  of  invention,  and  of  more  in- 
genuity of  construction  than  is  likely  to  be  possessed 
by  the  average  play  due  to  a  single  mind.  This  much 
must  be  admitted;  and  it  is  the  final  justification  for 
collaboration.  But  altho  these  partnerships  in  play- 
making  spread  abroad  a  knowledge  of  the  principles 
of  the  art,  and  altho  they  raise  the  probable  value  of 
the  average  play,  it  must  be  admitted  also,  and  with 
equal  frankness,  that  the  possibilities  of  collaboration 
are  sharply  limited. 

No  single  one  of  the  mightiest  masterpieces  of  dra- 
matic literature,  ancient  and  modem,  is  to  be  credited 
to  collaboration;  and  the  only  possible  exception  to 
this  sweeping  statement  would  be  urged  by  the  critics 
who  hold  that  the  *Gendre  de  M.  Poirier'  of  Augier 
and  Sandeau  is  the  masterpiece  of  French  comedy  in 
the  nineteenth  century.  Those  who  have  climbed  to 
the  loftiest  height  of  dramatic  art  have  always  done 
so  alone,  sustained  by  enthusiasm  and  supported  by 
imagination.  In  spite  of  the  greater  "richness  of 
purview,  consideration,  and  invention"  that  collabora- 
tion undoubtedly  bestows,  the  man  of  surpassing  genius, 
the  great  master  of  the  drama,  Sophocles  or  Shakspere 
or  Molidre,  works  best  alone.  It  is  true  that  he  may 
now  and  again  take  to  himself  an  ally,  as  Shakspere 
condescended  to  the  assistance  of  Fletcher  in  'Henry 
VIII,'  and  as  MoHere  invoked  the  aid  of  Comeille  in 

90 


DRAMATIC    COLLABORATION 

*  Psyche/  but  it  is  true  also  that  these  plays,  written 
in  collaboration  by  Shakspere  and  by  MoUere,  are  not 
the  plays  which  establish  and  confirm  their  fame. 
Indeed,  these  plays  are  not  even  among  the  more  im- 
portant pieces  of  Shakspere  and  Moliere,  and  the  rep- 
utation of  the  authors  would  be  no  lower  if  these 
plays  had  never  come  into  existence. 

It  is  by  the  comedies  and  tragedies  which  Shakspere 
wrote  alone  that  the  Elizabethan  stage  is  made  glori- 
ous, and  not  by  the  dramatic  romances  that  go  under 
the  joint  names  of  Beaimiont  and  Fletcher.  It  is  by 
the  lyrical  melodramas  of  which  Victor  Hugo  was  sole 
author  that  we  recall  the  Romanticist  revolt  in  the 
French  theater  in  1830,  and  immediately  thereafter, 
and  not  by  the  perfervidly  passionate  pieces  that  the 
elder  Dumas  put  together  in  partnership  with  a  group 
of  now-forgotten  auxiliaries.  It  is  by  the  comedies 
that  Augier  and  the  younger  Dimias  wrote,  each  of  them 
expressing  himself  in  his  own  fashion,  that  the  drama 
of  France  is  illumined  a  score  or  more  years  later,  and 
not  by  the  comedies  in  the  composition  of  which  Scribe 
had  the  aid  of  an  army  of  alhes. 

In  any  period  of  abundant  fertility  we  can  observe 
growing  together  at  the  same  time  from  the  soil,  a 
fairly  large  number  of  trees  rising  above  the  under- 
brush, and  we  can  also  perceive  here  and  there  a  tree 
of  conspicuous  eminence  towering  above  these  clumps 
of  average  height.  In  the  luxuriant  forest  of  the 
drama  many  of  the  trees  of  average  height  may  be 
ticketed  with  two  names,  but  the  monarchs  of  the 

01 


A    BOOK   ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

wood;  those  whose  tops  lift  themselves  high  above 
their  neighbors — these  will  be  found  to  bear  only  single 
signature. 

(1914.) 


62 


VI 

THE  DRAMATIZATION  OF  NOVELS  AND 
THE  NOVELIZATION  OF  PLAYS 


THE  DRAMATIZATION  OF  NOVELS  AND  THE 
NOVELIZATION  OF  PLAYS 


In  Professor  Bliss  Perry's  admirably  suggestive  'Study 
of  Prose  Fiction/  he  devotes  one  chapter  to  a  careful 
consideration  of  the  essential  distinctions  between 
prose  fiction  and  the  drama,  in  which  he  makes  it 
plain  that  "the  novel  and  the  play  are  not  merely  two 
different  modes  of  communicating  the  same  fact  or 
truth,"  because  "the  different  modes  of  presentation 
really  result  in  the  communication  of  a  different  fact." 
Professor  Perry  declares  that  the  field  of  the  dramatist 
is  marked  off  from  that  of  the  novelist  "by  the  nature 
of  the  artistic  medium  which  each  man  employs,"  and 
he  asserts  that  the  choice  of  a  medium  for  presenting 
his  story  and  projecting  his  characters  "depends  wholly 
upon  the  personality  and  training  of  the  artist  and  the 
nature  of  the  fact  or  truth  that  he  wishes  to  convey  to 
the  public".  And  he  sums  up  by  insisting  that  "a 
novel  is  typically  as  far  removed  from  a  play  as  a  bird 
is  from  a  fish,  and  that  any  attempt  to  transform  one 
into  the  other  is  apt  to  result  in  a  sort  of  flying-fish,  a 
betwixt-and-between  thing — capable,  indeed,  of  both 
swimming  and  flying,  but  good  at  neither."  In  other 
words,  a  dramatized  novel  or  a  novelized  play  is  an 

95 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

attempt  to  breed  an  amphibious  creature  which,  as  the 
Irishman  once  defined  it,  "can't  live  on  the  land,  and 
dies  in  the  water." 

The  difference  between  the  novel  and  the  play  is 
due  to  the  inexorable  fact  that  one  is  intended  to  be 
read  alone  in  the  study,  and  that  the  other  is  intended 
to  be  seen  on  the  stage  by  a  crowd;  it  ought  to  be  ob- 
vious to  all  who  care  to  consider  the  question,  and  yet 
there  are  many  who  fail  to  grasp  the  distinction,  de- 
ceived by  the  illusive  but  superficial  similarities  be- 
tween the  two  forms,  each  of  which  contains  a  story 
carried  on  by  characters  who  take  part  in  dialogs. 
And  as  a  result  of  this  failure  to  apprehend  the  vital 
differences  between  the  two  types  of  story-telling,  the 
narrative  to  be  perused  and  the  action  to  be  witnessed, 
our  theaters  have  long  been  invaded  by  dramatized 
novels,  and  oiu*  book-stores  are  now  being  besieged 
by  noveHzed  plays.  In  many  cases,  if  not  in  most  of 
them,  the  motive  for  the  transformation  is  simply 
commercial;  and  in  view  of  the  immediate  gain  to  be 
garnered,  the  artistic  disadvantages  of  the  procedure 
are  overlooked.  If  hundreds  of  thousands  of  readers 
have  found  pleasure  in  following  the  footsteps  of  a 
fascinating  heroine  thru  the  pages  of  a  prose  fiction,  it 
is  possible  always  that  hundreds  of  thousands  of  spec- 
tators may  be  lured  to  behold  her  adventures  when 
they  are  set  forth  anew  in  a  stage-play.  And  if  a  com- 
pelling plot  has  drawn  audiences  night  after  night  into 
the  theater,  it  is  possible  again  that  this  plot  may  at- 
tract book-buyers  in  equal  numbers  when  it  is  retold 

96 


NOVELS    AND    PLAYS 

in  a  narrative  for  the  benefit  of  those  remote  from  the 
playhouse,  or  reluctant  to  risk  themselves  within  its 
portals.  Managers  are  ready  to  tempt  the  novelist 
with  the  hope  of  a  second  crop  of  fame  and  fortune, 
and  publishers  dangle  the  same  golden  bait  before  the 
eyes  of  the  dramatist. 

Altho  this  effort  to  kill  two  birds  with  one  stone  is 
more  frequent  of  late  than  it  used  to  be,  it  is  not  at  all 
new — ^indeed  it  existed  before  the  rise  of  prose  fiction. 
The  dramatic  poets  of  Greece  borrowed  episodes  from 
the  earhest  epic  poets.  Centuries  later  Shakspere  laid 
violent  hands  on  ItaKan  tales  and  on  English  romances. 
On  the  other  hand,  while  it  must  be  admitted  that  the 
dramatizing  of  novels  has  been  far  more  prevalent  in 
the  past  than  the  novehzing  of  plays,  this  latter  prac- 
tise, suddenly  popular  in  the  twentieth  century,  was 
not  unknown  in  the  centuries  that  preceded  ours.  For 
example,  Le  Sage  levied  upon  the  Spanish  playwrights 
for  many  of  the  characters  and  the  situations  he  needed, 
for  his  rambling,  picaresque  novels,  'Gil  Bias'  and  its 
sister  stories.  Another  illustration  can  be  found  in 
England  earher  than  any  in  France;  and  before  the 
play  of  'Pericles,*  which  Shakspere  seems  to  have 
edited  and  improved,  was  printed  and  perhaps  even 
before  it  was  performed,  it  was  novelized  by  an  obscure 
writer  named  Wilkins,  who  was  very  probably  the  au- 
thor of  the  original  version  of  the  straggling  piece  that 
Shakspere  revised.  Thru  the  long  years  prose  fiction 
and  the  drama  have  struggled  with  each  other  for  the 
favor  of  the  pubHc,  and  each  of  them  has  always  been 

97 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

willing  to  borrow  from  its  rival  whenever  it  found 
material  fitted  for  its  own  special  purpose. 


But  altho  the  dramatizing  of  novels  was  less  uncom- 
mon a  century  or  two  ago  than  the  novehzing  of  plays, 
neither  was  frequent  and  neither  of  them  was  in  any 
way  prohibited  by  law.  That  is  to  say,  the  novel  and 
the  play  were  held  to  be  so  different  that  the  novehst 
could  not  prevent  the  dramatist  from  borrowing  his 
stories,  and  the  playwright  could  not  forbid  the  writer 
of  prose  fiction  from  taking  over  his  plots.  Even  the 
dramatizing  of  novels  was  so  uncommon  that  the  earlier 
story-tellers  were  not  moved  to  protest  when  they  saw 
their  fictions  employed  by  the  playwrights;  in  fact, 
they  were  often  inclined  to  accept  this  as  a  compliment 
to  their  original  invention.  Marmontel,  for  instance, 
in  the  preface  to  a  late  edition  of  his  'Moral  Tales, ^ 
pointed  with  pride  to  the  fact  that  one  of  these  prose 
narratives  had  been  turned  into  a  play,  and  suggested 
complacently  that  there  were  other  stories  in  his  col- 
lection worthy  of  the  same  fate.  Tennyson  bor- 
rowed the  story  of  his  'Dora'  from  Miss  Mitford;  and 
Charles  Reade  had  no  scruple  in  making  a  play  out 
of  Tennyson's  poem.  It  must  be  admitted  that  Reade's 
attitude  was  rather  inconsistent,  for  he  writhed  in  pain 
when  one  of  his  own  novels  was  cut  into  dialog  and 
put  on  the  stage  without  his  permission,  and  yet  he 
himself  made  plays  out  of  novels  by  Anthony  Trollope 


NOVELS    AND    PLAYS 

and  by  Mrs.  Frances  Hodgson  Burnett  without  asking 
their  leave,  and  without  heed  to  their  subsequent  pro- 
tests against  his  high-handed  proceeding.  Apparently, 
when  he  was  the  aggressor  he  thought  that  he  was 
doing  a  service  to  his  victims. 

When  Reade  was  guilty  of  this  offense  against  the 
developing  literary  morals  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
he  was  probably  within  his  legal  rights,  since  the  Brit- 
ish law  had  not  then  advanced  to  the  point  of  recog- 
nizing the  author's  complete  ownership  of  the  fiction 
he  had  created.  This  defect  has  been  remedied  at 
last,  and  in  the  existing  copyright  and  stage-right  legis- 
lation of  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  authors 
are  assumed  to  reserve  to  themselves  every  privilege 
which  they  do  not  specifically  deprive  themselves  of; 
and  they  need  no  longer  announce  that  they  desire  to 
retain  all  rights  for  their  own  profit.  Both  in  the  British 
code  and  in  the  American  the  novelist  has  now  the  sole 
privilege  of  making  a  play  out  of  his  story,  and  the 
dramatist  has  the  sole  privilege  of  making  a  novel  out 
of  his  play.  Dramatization  is  a  word  of  respectable 
antiquity,  and  the  corresponding  word,  novelization, 
has  now  been  legally  recognized  as  a  distinctive  term. 
The  authors  had  felt  a  wrong  when  others  could  legally 
make  money  out  of  a  plot  they  had  invented;  and  they 
asserted  a  moral  right  to  control  their  own  works  what- 
ever might  be  the  form  of  presentation.  The  progress 
of  legal  reform  was  slow,  as  it  usually  is,  but  it  was  also 
certain.  The  moral  right  has  now  become  a  legal  right 
of  which  the  original  author  may  avail  himself  or  not, 

99 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

as  he  pleases.  He  may,  if  he  chooses,  dramatize  his 
own  novel  and  noveHze  his  own  play;  or,  if  he  prefers, 
he  can  sell  the  permission  to  rehandle  his  material  to 
a  professional  playwright  or  to  a  professional  story- 
teller. 


m 

There  is  one  peculiar  distinction  between  the  novel 
and  the  play  which  Professor  Bliss  Perry  did  not  em- 
phasize. A  novel  may  please  long,  and  please  many 
when  it  is  only  a  study  of  character,  like  the  *  Crime  of 
Sylvestre  Bonnard'  of  M.  Anatole  France,  or  when  it  is 
only  the  record  of  a  series  of  adventures  and  misadven- 
tures passing  before  the  eyes  of  the  chief  personage, 
like  the  *  Huckleberry  Finn'  of  Mark  Twain.  A  play, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  likely  to  fail  to  please  audiences 
in  the  theater  unless  it  sets  before  the  spectators  a 
clearly  defined  struggle,  a  conflict  of  desires,  a  stark 
assertion  of  the  human  will.  That  is  to  say,  the  drama 
must  deal  with  a  struggle,  and  the  novel  need  not. 
The  drama  must  be  dynamic  and  the  novel  may  be 
static — if  these  scientific  terms  may  be  employed  with- 
out pedantry.  Therefore,  while  any  play  may  be 
novelized,  with  more  or  less  chance  of  pleasing  its  new 
public,  if  the  task  is  skilfully  accomplished,  only  those 
novels  can  be  successfully  dramatized  which  happen 
to  present  an  essential  struggle  and  to  display  the  col- 
lision of  contending  volitions.  Any  dramatization  of 
the  'Crime  of  Sylvestre  Bonnard'  or  of  'Huckleberry 

100 


NOVELS    AND    PLAYS 

Finn,'  of  'Gil  Bias'  or  of  the  'Pickwick  Papers/  is  fore- 
doomed to  failure,  for  these  prose  fictions  do  not  con- 
tain the  stuff  out  of  which  a  vital  play  could  be  made. 
But  'Jane  Eyre,'  for  example,  and  the  'Tale  of  Two 
Cities,'  and  'Uncle  Tom's  Cabin'  do  possess  this  neces- 
sary dramatic  element,  and  they  can  be  made  into  plays 
with  a  prospect  of  pleasing  audiences  in  the  theater. 

Even  when  the  novel  chances  to  have  the  essential 
struggle  which  the  drama  demands,  the  task  of  adapt- 
ing it  to  the  stage  is  not  so  easy  as  the  non-expert  sup- 
poses. At  first  sight  it  may  seem  as  if  there  ought  to 
be  very  httle  difficulty  in  turning  a  novel  into  a  play. 
There  is  a  story  ready-made,  situations  in  abundance, 
and  characters  endowed  with  the  breath  of  life.  Yet 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  harder  to  make  a  play  out  of 
a  novel  than  it  is  to  write  an  original  play.  The 
immediate  danger  before  the  theatrical  adapter  is  that 
he  may  be  tempted  to  serve  up  the  story  merely  as  a 
panorama  of  successive  episodes  instead  of  casting  out 
resolutely  everything,  however  good  in  itself,  which 
does  not  bear  directly  upon  the  fundamental  conflict. 
This  is  one  reason  why  the  novehst  had  better  leave 
the  work  of  dramatization  to  an  experienced  play- 
wright, who  will  ruthlessly  omit  many  an  episode  that 
the  story-teller  could  not  bring  himself  to  discard.  In 
fact,  it  is  hard  even  for  the  expert  adapter  to  disen- 
tangle the  special  situations  of  a  novel  which  alone  are 
available  in  a  play,  and  he  is  often  tempted  to  retain 
much  that  he  had  better  leave  out. 

Perhaps  it  is  not  too  daring  a  paradox  to  suggest 

101 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

that  a  prose  fiction  is  most  likely  to  be  made  into  a 
good  play  when  the  playwright  has  not  read  the  book 
he  is  dramatizing,  but  has  only  been  told  the  story,  so 
that  he  is  free  to  handle  the  situations  afresh  in  accord 
with  the  conditions  of  dramatic  art,  and  free  to  discard 
the  special  developments  chosen  by  the  novelist  in 
accord  with  the  very  different  conditions  of  narrative 
art.  The  best  version  of  Mrs.  Henry  Wood's  'East 
Lynne'  is  the  French  play,  'Miss  Multon,'  by  Adolphe 
Belot  and  Eugene  Nus;  and  neither  of  the  French  col- 
laborators knew  any  more  about  the  English  novel 
than  its  bare  story,  which  was  told  to  one  of  them  by  a 
French  actress,  who  could  read  English.  Now  and 
again  a  clever  playwright,  even  when  he  has  the  dis- 
advantage of  complete  famiKarity  with  the  novel,  can 
break  loose  from  it  and  yet  preserve  its  full  flavor;  and 
this  is  what  Mr.  George  M.  Cohan  was  able  to  do  in 
the  play  wherein  he  presented  the  leading  characters 
of  Mr.  George  Randolph  Chester's  'Get-Rich-Quick- 
Wallingford'  in  a  set  of  situations  very  different  from 
those  in  the  original  story. 

Thus  we  see  that  only  a  few  novels  are  really  fit  to 
be  dramatized,  and  that  even  these  are  often  drama- 
tized ineffectively  because  the  playwright  has  followed 
the  story-teller  too  closely  instead  of  putting  the  plot 
back  into  solution,  so  to  speak,  and  letting  it  recrystal- 
Hze  in  dramatic  form.  The  novelizer  has  a  larger 
liberty  since  every  play  contains  a  story  and  characters 
capable  of  being  transferred  to  prose  fiction.  But  his 
task  has  its  equivalent  danger,  and  the  writer  of  the 

102 


NOVELS    AND    PLAYS 

narrative  may  be  content  merely  to  tread  in  the  foot- 
steps of  the  dramatist,  and  to  do  no  more  than  write 
out  more  amply  the  dialog  and  the  stage  business, 
instead  of  reconceiving  the  plot  afresh  to  tell  it  more 
in  accord  with  the  divergent  principles  of  the  art  of 
prose  fiction.  The  limitations  of  time  to  "the  two 
hours*  traffic  of  the  stage"  compel  the  dramatist  to 
extreme  compression;  his  dialogs  must  be  far  com- 
pacter  and  more  pregnant  than  is  becoming  in  the  more 
leisurely  novel,  where  the  author  can  take  all  the  time 
there  is.  Moreover,  the  playwright  often  does  no 
more  than  allude  to  episodes  which  it  would  profit  the 
novelist  to  present  in  detail  to  his  readers;  and  the 
adroit  novelizer  will  be  quick  to  seize  upon  hints  of 
this  sort  to  amplify  into  chapters  containing  interesting 
material  for  which  the  original  play  supphed  only  the 
most  summary  suggestion. 

IV 

The  novelizing  of  plays  is  frequent  and  profitable  in 
America  in  these  early  years  of  the  twentieth  century; 
and  it  had  been  attempted  infrequently  even  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  Yet  only  one  of  these  novelized 
plays  has  succeeded  in  winning  an  honorable  place  for 
itself  in  prose  fiction.  This  is  the  charming  tale  of 
theatrical  life  in  the  eighteenth  centiuy,  'Peg  Woffing- 
ton,'  which  Charles  Reade  made  out  of  the  comedy 
of  *  Masks  and  Faces,'  written  by  him  in  collaboration 
with  Tom  Taylor.    Reade  took  the  liberty  of  novel- 

103 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

izing  this  comedy  without  asking  Taylor's  permission, 
and  even  without  consulting  his  collaborator;  and  all 
the  comment  that  need  be  made  is  that  the  procedure 
was  truly  characteristic  of  Reade's  lordly  attitude  to- 
ward others — an  attitude  taken  by  him  on  many  other 
occasions.  But  whatever  injustice  he  did  to  his  fellow 
worker,  he  did  none  to  the  joint  product  of  their  in- 
vention; he  transmuted  a  play  into  a  novel  with  due 
appreciation  of  the  demands  of  the  other  art,  and  he 
produced  a  fascinating  tale  with  a  fascinating  heroine, 
which  has  been  read  by  thousands  who  have  had  no 
suspicion  that  Peg  Woffington  had  originally  figured  in 
a  comedy. 

Charles  Reade  was  able  to  accomplish  this  feat  be- 
cause he  was  more  skilful  as  a  noveUst  than  as  a  dram- 
atist, altho  he  fancied  himself  rather  as  a  maker  of 
plays  than  as  a  writer  of  stories.  More  than  once  did 
he  attempt  to  repeat  this  early  success  in  winning  two 
prizes  with  the  same  horse.  He  took  the  'Pauvres  de 
Paris'  of  Brisebarre  and  Nus — the  same  play  which 
Dion  Boucicault  had  adapted  as  the  'Streets  of  New 
York' — and  made  a  version  which  he  called  'Gold,' 
imder  which  name  it  had  a  few  performances.  He  had 
materially  modified  the  French  plot  in  his  English  play; 
and  he  got  still  further  away  from  Brisebarre  and  Nus, 
when  he  novelized  'Gold,'  and  called  it  'Hard  Cash,' 
a  matter-of-fact  romance.  Later  he  dramatized  this 
novel  of  his,  and  the  resulting  play  did  not  bear  any 
close  resemblance  to  the  'Pauvres  de  Paris.' 

Reade  also  collaborated  a  few  years  later  with  Henry 

104 


NOVELS    AND    PLAYS 

Pettitt  in  a  piece  called  'Singleheart  and  Double- 
face/  which  he  promptly  proceeded  to  novelize — again 
■wdthout  consulting  his  partner.  For  this  indelicacy, 
swift  vengeance  followed,  as  the  British  novel,  being 
then  unprotected  by  copyright  in  the  United  States, 
was  immediately  dramatized  by  Messrs.  George  H. 
Jessop  and  William  Gill.  It  may  be  noted  here  casually 
that  another  of  Reade's  romances,  'White  Lies,'  after- 
ward dramatized  by  him,  had  been  originally  novelized 
from  a  French  play  called  the  'ChS-teau  de  Grantier,' 
written  by  Auguste  Maquet  (the  ally  of  Dumas  in  the 
'Three  Guardsmen'  and  'Monte  Cristo').  It  is  not  a 
little  surprising  that  a  man  like  Reade,  who  prided 
himself  on  his  originality,  and  who  even  went  so  far 
as  to  accuse  George  Eliot  of  stealing  his  thunder,  should 
have  been  willing  to  call  so  frequently  on  the  aid  of  col- 
laborators, and  to  derive  so  much  of  his  material  from 
foreign  sources. 

The  only  other  author  who  has  ventured  to  tiim  a 
play  into  a  novel,  and  then  back  into  a  play  varying 
widely  from  the  original  piece,  is  Sir  James  Barrie,  and 
what  he  did  was  not  quite  what  Reade  had  done.  Sir 
James  wrote  a  charming  story,  called  the  'Little  White 
Bird,'  and  he  foimd  in  his  own  prose  fiction  part  of  the 
material  out  of  which  he  was  moved  later  to  make  a 
charming  play,  called  'Peter  Pan.'  For  reasons  best 
known  to  himself,  but  deplored  by  all  who  are  inter- 
ested in  the  progress  of  the  English  drama,  Sir  James 
Barrie  has  chosen  to  publish  only  a  few  of  his  comedies. 
Yet  he  met  the  demands  of  a  multitude  of  readers  by 

105 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

borrowing  from  his  fantastic  piece  a  part  of  the  material 
which  he  made  into  a  deHghtful  tale,  called  'Peter  Pan 
in  Kensington  Gardens.'  These  successive  rehandlings 
of  an  idea,  first  in  prose  fiction,  then  in  dramatic  form, 
and  finally  again  in  prose  fiction,  were  possible  only 
to  a  novelist  who  was  also  a  dramatist — ^to  an  author 
who  had  mastered  the  secrets  of  two  different  methods 
of  story-telling,  the  method  of  the  theater  and  the 
method  of  the  Hbrary. 


The  novelist-dramatist  of  this  type  is  a  comparatively 
new  figure  in  literature.  Formerly  there  was  a  sharp 
line  of  cleavage  between  the*  man  who  wrote  novels  and 
the  man  who  wrote  plays,  altho  one  or  the  other  might 
be  lured  on  occasion  into  a  sporadic  raid  into  the  terri- 
tory of  the  other.  During  three-quarters  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  prose  fiction  reigned  supreme  in  every 
modem  Hterature  except  that  of  France,  and  the  novel- 
ists were  rather  inclined  to  look  down  on  the  play- 
wrights, and  to  dismiss  the  drama  as  an  inferior  form, 
hkely  to  be  absolutely  superseded  by  prose  fiction. 
But  toward  the  end  of  the  century  there  began  to  be 
visible  signs  of  an  awakening  interest  in  the  drama,  and 
also  of  a  slackening  interest  in  prose  fiction.  The 
novelists  of  the  twentieth  century,  so  far  from  holding 
the  drama  to  be  an  inferior  form,  are  discovering  that 
it  is  at  least  a  more  difficult  form,  and  therefore  artisti- 
cally more  attractive.    As  a  result  of  this  discovery  not 

106 


NOVELS    AND    PLAYS 

a  few  novelists  have  turned  playwrights,  taking  the 
pains  to  leam  the  principles  of  the  more  dangerous 
art  of  play-making.  Sir  James  Barrie  in  England,  M. 
Paul  Hervieu  in  France,  Herr  Sudermann  in  Germany, 
and  Signor  d'Annunzio  in  Italy  may  not  have  aban- 
doned altogether  the  prose  fiction  in  which  they  first 
won  fame,  but  at  least  they  now  devote  the  major  part 
of  their  energies  to  the  drama.  It  may  be  recalled 
that  Clyde  Fitch  began  his  literary  career  as  a  writer 
of  short  stories,  and  that  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  originally 
emerged  to  view  as  the  author  of  a  novel. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  noted  as  significant 
that  the  playwrights  are  not  tempted  to  turn  novelists; 
they  seem  to  be  satisfied  with  their  own  art  as  the  more 
exacting,  and  therefore  the  more  interesting.  M.  Ros- 
tand and  M.  Maeterlinck,  Sir  Arthur  Pinero  and  Mr. 
Henry  Arthur  Jones,  Mr.  WiUiam  Gillette  and  Mr. 
Augustus  Thomas  have  not  been  lured  from  the  drama 
into  prose  fiction.  The  novel  is  a  loose  form  which 
makes  only  lax  demands  on  its  practitioners,  and  which 
does  not  require  an  artist  always  to  do  his  best.  The 
play  has  a  severe  technic,  and  it  tolerates  no  careless- 
ness of  construction.  The  more  gifted  a  story-teller 
may  be,  and  the  more  artistic,  the  more  probable  it  is 
that  in  the  immediate  future  he  wiU  seek  to  express 
himself  in  the  drama,  even  if  he  is  also  moved  now  and 
again  to  return  to  the  easier  path  of  prose  fiction. 

And  this  raises  another  interesting  point.  Now  that 
the  drama  is  rising  again  into  rivalry  with  prose 
fiction,  is  not  the  plajrwright  who  allows  his  piece  to 

107 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

be  novelized  a  traitor  to  his  cause  ?  Is  he  not,  in  fact, 
confessing  that  he  esteems  the  play  inferior  to  the 
novel?  Apparently  this  is  the  attitude  taken  by  the 
more  prominent  dramatists  of  the  day;  most  of  them 
pubHsh  their  plays  to  be  read,  and  few  of  them  allow 
these  plays  to  be  noveUzed — altho  they  might  find  a 
superior  profit  if  they  descended  to  this.  It  is  an  un- 
fortunate fact  that  the  public  which  is  eager  to  read 
prose  fiction  is  not  so  eager  to  read  the  drama.  In  the 
dearth  of  dramatic  literature  in  our  language  during 
the  nineteenth  century,  the  pubUc  lost  the  habit  of 
reading  plays,  a  habit  possessed  by  the  public  of  the 
eighteenth  century  before  the  vogue  of  the  novel  had 
been  established  in  consequence  of  the  overwhelming 
popularity  of  Scott,  followed  speedily  by  that  of 
Dickens  and  Thackeray. 

Yet  there  are  signs  that  the  general  reader  is  slowly 
recovering  the  ability  to  find  pleasure  in  the  perusal 
of  a  play.  The  social  dramas  of  Ibsen  have,  most  of 
them,  been  performed  here  and  there  in  the  theaters 
of  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States;  but  they  have 
been  read  by  thousands  who  have  had  no  opportunity 
to  see  them  on  the  stage.  So  it  is  with  the  plays  of 
Mr.  Bernard  Shaw,  most  of  which  have  also  appeared 
in  our  playhouses.  So  it  is  with  the  plays  of  M. 
Maeterlinck,  only  a  few  of  which  have  been  produced  in 
the  American  theater.  In  time,  it  seems  highly  proba- 
ble that  the  reading  public  will  extend  as  glad  a  welcome 
to  a  play  by  Mr.  Galsworthy  or  by  Mr.  Booth  Tark- 
ington  as  to  one  of  their  novels.    But  this  happy 

108 


NOVELS    AND    PLAYS 

state  can  be  brought  about  only  if  the  dramatists  reso- 
lutely refrain  from  novelizing  their  plays  themselves, 
and  from  authorizing  novelization  by  others. 

(1913.) 


109 


vn 

WOMEN  DRAMATISTS 


WOMEN  DRAMATISTS 


To  some  of  the  more  ardent  advocates  of  the  theory 
that  women  are  capable  of  rivaling  men  in  every  one 
of  the  arts  it  is  a  little  surprising,  not  to  say  discon- 
certing, that  there  are  so  few  female  playwrights.  The 
drama  is  closely  akin  to  the  novel,  since  it  is  another 
form  of  story-telling;  and  in  the  telling  of  stories  women 
have  been  abmidantly  productive  from  a  time  whereof 
the  memory  of  man  runneth  not  to  the  contrary.  And 
as  performers  on  the  stage  women  have  achieved  in- 
disputable eminence;  in  fact,  acting  is  probably  the 
earhest  of  the  arts  (as  possibly  it  is  still  the  only  one) 
in  which  women  have  won  their  way  to  the  very  front 
rank;  and  in  the  nineteenth  century  there  were  two 
tragic  actresses,  Mrs.  Siddons  and  Rachel,  certainly 
not  inferior  in  power  and  in  elevation  to  the  most  dis- 
tinguished of  tragic  actors.  Why  is  it,  then,  that 
women  story-tellers  have  not  thrust  themselves  thru 
the  open  stage  door  to  become  more  effective  compet- 
itors of  the  men  playwrights  ? 

Before  considering  this  question,  it  may  be  well  to 
record  that  women  playwrights  have  appeared  sporadi- 
cally both  in  French  literature  and  in  English.  In 
France  Madeleine  B^jart,  whose  sister  Moli^re  married, 

113 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

was  credited  with  the  authorship  of  more  than  one 
play;  and  in  the  last  hundred  years  George  Sand  and 
Mme.  de  Girardin  brought  out  comedies  and  dramas, 
several  of  which  succeeded  in  establishing  themselves 
in  the  repertory  of  the  Com^die-Frangaise.  In  Eng- 
land at  one  time  or  another  plays  of  an  immediate 
popularity  were  produced  by  Mrs.  Aphra  Behn,  Mrs. 
Centlivre,  and  Mrs.  Inchbald;  and  in  America  Mrs. 
Bateman's  'SeK/  and  Mrs.  Mowatt's  *  Fashion'  held 
the  stage  for  several  seasons,  while  few  of  recent  suc- 
cesses in  the  New  York  theaters  had  a  more  dehghtful 
freshness  or  a  more  alluring  fantasy  than  Mrs.  Gates's 
'Poor  Little  Rich  Girl,'  and  few  of  them  have  dealt 
more  boldly  with  a  burning  question  than  Miss  Ford's 
'Polygamy.'  These  examples  of  woman's  competence 
to  compose  plays  with  vitality  enough  to  withstand  the 
ordeal  by  fire  before  the  footlights  are  evidence  that 
if  there  exists  any  prejudice  against  the  female  drama- 
tist it  can  be  overcome.  They  are  evidence,  also,  that 
women  are  not  debarred  from  the  competition;  and 
fairness  requires  the  record  here  that,  when  Mr.  Win- 
throp  Ames  proffered  a  prize  for  an  American  play, 
this  was  awarded  to  a  woman. 

But  to  grant  equality  of  opportunity  is  not  to  confer 
equality  of  abihty,  and  when  we  call  the  roll  of  the 
dramatists  who  have  given  luster  to  French  literature 
and  to  English,  we  discover  that  this  list  is  not  en- 
riched by  the  name  of  any  woman.  The  fame  of 
George  Sand  is  not  derived  from  her  contributions  to 
dramatic  literature,  and  the  contributions  of  Mrs. 

114 


WOMEN    DRAMATISTS 

Behn,  Mrs,  Centlivre,  and  Mrs.  Inchbald,  of  Mrs. 
Bateman  and  Mrs.  Mowatt;  entitle  them  to  take  rank 
only  among  the  minor  playwrights  of  their  own  gen- 
erations; and  to  say  this  is  to  say  that  their  plays  are 
now  famiHar  only  to  devoted  specialists  in  the  annals 
of  the  stage,  and  that  the  general  reader  could  not  give 
the  name  of  a  single  piece  from  the  pen  of  any  one  of 
these  enterprising  ladies.  In  other  words,  the  female 
playwrights  are  so  few  and  so  miimportant  that  a  con- 
scientious historian  of  either  French  or  English  dra- 
matic literature  might  almost  neglect  them  altogether 
without  seriously  invalidating  his  survey.  Perhaps  the 
only  EngHsh  titles  that  are  more  than  mere  items  in 
a  barren  catalog  are  Mrs.  Centlivre's  'Wonder'  and 
Mrs.  Cowley's  'Belle's  Stratagem';  and  the  French 
pieces  of  female  authorship  which  might  protest  against 
exclusion  are  almost  as  few — Mme.  de  Girardin's  'La 
Joie  fait  Peur,'  and  George  Sand's  'Marquis  de  Ville- 
mer'  and  'Mariage  de  Victorine.' 

Indeed,  the  women  playwrights  of  the  past  and  of 
the  present  might  be  two  or  three  times  more  numerous 
than  they  are,  and  two  or  three  times  more  important 
without  even  treading  upon  the  heels  of  the  male  play- 
makers.  This  is  an  incontrovertible  fact;  yet  it  is 
equally  indisputable  that  as  performers  in  the  theater 
women  are  competitors  whom  men  respect  and  with 
whom  they  have  to  reckon,  and  that  as  story-tellers 
women  are  as  popular  and  as  prolific  as  men.  And  here 
we  are  brought  back  again  to  the  question  with  which 
this  inquiry  began:  Why  is  it  then  that  women  have 

115 


A  BOOK'  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

not  been  as  popular  and  as  prolific  in  telling  stories  on 
the  stage?  Why  cannot  they  write  a  play  as  well  as 
they  can  act  in  it? 

One  answer  to  this  question  has  been  volunteered 
by  a  woman  who  succeeded  as  an  actress,  and  who  did 
not  altogether  fail  as  a  dramatic  poetess,  altho  she 
came  in  later  life  to  have  little  esteem  for  her  earlier 
attempts  at  play-writing.  It  is  in  her  *  Records  of  a 
Girlhood'  that  Fanny  Kemble  expressed  the  conviction 
that  it  was  absolutely  impossible  for  a  woman  ever  to 
be  a  great  dramatist,  because  "her  physical  organiza- 
tion" was  against  it.  "After  all,  it  is  great  nonsense 
saying  that  intellect  is  of  no  sex.  The  brain  is,  of 
course,  of  the  same  sex  as  the  rest  of  the  creature; 
beside  the  original  female  nature,  the  whole  of  our 
training  and  education,  our  inevitable  ignorance  of 
common  life  and  general  human  nature,  and  the  vari- 
ous experiences  of  existence  from  which  we  are  debarred 
with  the  most  sedulous  care,  is  insuperably  against  it" 
— ^that  is,  against  the  possibility  of  a  really  searching 
tragedy,  or  of  a  really  hberal  comedy  ever  being  com- 
posed by  a  woman.  To  this  rather  sweeping  denial  of 
of  the  dramaturgic  gift  to  women  Fanny  Kemble  added 
an  apt  suggestion,  that  "perhaps  some  of  the  manly, 
wicked  queens,  Semiramis,  Cleopatra,  could  have 
written  plays — ^but  they  Uved  their  tragedies  instead 
of  writing  of  them." 


116 


WOMEN    DRAMATISTS 


n 

At  first  sight  it  may  seem  as  if  one  of  Famiy  Kemble's 
assertions — ^that  no  woman  can  be  a  dramatist  because 
of  her  inevitable  ignorance  of  life  and  of  the  experi- 
ences of  existence  from  which  she  is  debarred — is  dis- 
proved by  the  imdeniable  triumphs  of  women  in  acting, 
and  by  the  indisputable  victories  won  by  women  in 
the  field  of  prose  fiction,  achieved  in  spite  of  these  ad- 
mitted limitations.  But  on  a  more  careful  considera- 
tion it  will  appear  that  as  an  actress  woman  is  called 
upon  only  to  embody  and  to  interpret  characters  con- 
ceived by  man  with  the  aid  of  his  wider  and  deeper 
knowledge  of  life.  And  when  we  analyze  the  most 
renowned  of  the  novels  by  which  women  have  attained 
fame,  we  discover  that  the  best  of  these  deal  exclu- 
sively with  the  narrower  regions  of  conduct,  and  with 
the  more  restricted  areas  of  life  with  which  she  is  most 
familiar  as  a  woman,  and  that  when  she  seeks  to  go 
outside  her  incomplete  experience  of  existence  she  soon 
makes  us  aware  of  the  gaps  in  her  equipment. 

One  of  the  strongest  stories  ever  written  by  a  woman 
is  the  'Jane  Eyre'  of  Charlotte  Bronte;  and  the  inex- 
perience of  the  forlorn  and  lonely  spinster  is  almost 
ludicrously  made  manifest  in  her  portrayal  of  Roches- 
ter, a  superbly  projected  figure,  not  sustained  by  in- 
timate knowledge  of  the  type  to  which  he  belongs. 
Charlotte  Bronte  knew  Jane  Eyre  inside  and  out;  but 
she  did  not  know  even  the  outside  of  Rochester.  Be- 
ll? 


A   BOOK   ABOUT   THE   THEATER 

cause  women  are  debarred  with  the  most  sedulous  care 
from  various  experiences  of  existence  they  can  never 
know  men  as  men  can  know  women.  This  is  the  basis 
for  the  shrewd  remark  that  in  deaKng  with  affairs  of 
the  heart  men  noveHsts  rarely  tell  all  they  know, 
whereas  women  novelists  are  often  tempted  to  tell 
more  than  they  know.  Even  women  like  George  EHot 
and  George  Sand,  who  have  more  or  less  broken  out 
of  bounds,  are  still  more  or  less  confined  to  their  indi- 
vidual associations  with  the  other  sex;  and  they  lack 
the  inexhaustible  fund  of  information  about  life  which 
is  the  common  property  of  men. 

Women  have  most  satisfactorily  displayed  their 
special  endowment  for  fiction  not  in  what  must  be 
called  the  dramatic  novel,  not  in  soul-searching  studies 
like  the  'Scarlet  Letter'  and  'Anna  Kar4nine,'  but 
rather  in  less  solidly  supported  inquiries  into  the  inter- 
relation of  character  and  social  convention,  as  in  'Pride 
and  Prejudice'  and  'Castle  Rackrent.'  It  would  be 
unfair  to  assert  that  Maria  Edgeworth  and  Jane  Austen 
are  superficial;  yet  it  is  not  unfair  to  say  that  they  do 
not  explore  deeply,  and  that  they  do  not  deal  with 
what  Stevenson  called  the  great  passionate  crises  of 
existence,  "when  duty  and  incHnation  come  nobly  to 
the  grapple."  This  is  the  essential  struggle  of  the 
drama;  and  the  authoress  of  'Jane  Eyre'  sought  to 
present  it  boldly,  even  if  she  was  handicapped  by  in- 
sufficient information;  and  this  essential  struggle  was 
what  Charlotte  Bronte  herself  missed  in  Jane  Austen: 
"The  passions  are  perfectly  unknown  to  her;  she  re- 

118 


WOMEN    DRAMATISTS 

jects  even  a  speaking  acquaintance  with  that  stonny 
sisterhood.  What  sees  keenly,  speaks  aptly,  moves 
flexibly,  it  suits  her  to  study;  but  what  throbs  fast 
and  full,  tho  hidden,  what  the  blood  rushes  thru,  what 
is  the  unseen  seat  of  life,  and  the  sentient  target  of 
death — ^this  Miss  Austen  ignores." 

Jane  Austen  spent  her  great  gift  on  the  carving  of 
cherry-stones,  laboring  with  exquisite  art  to  lift  into 
temporary  importance  the  eternally  unimportant;  and 
Charlotte  Bronte,  in  her  ampler  endeavor,  was  ever 
hampered  by  inadequacy  of  knowledge.  George  EHot, 
with  wider  opportunity  than  either  of  these  predeces- 
sors, profited  by  both  of  them  and  borrowed  their 
processes  in  turn;  she  was  broader  than  they  were,  and 
bolder  in  her  attack  on  life;  her  effort  is  more  strenu- 
ously intellectual  than  theirs,  and  therefore  a  Httle 
fatiguing,  and  this  is  perhaps  why  her  vogue  seems  now 
to  be  evaporating  slowly.  And  when  all  is  said,  no 
one  of  these  clever  story-tellers  really  attains  to  an 
altitude  of  accomplishment  where  she  can  fairly  be 
considered  as  a  competitor  of  the  mighty  masters  of 
prose  fiction.  No  woman  novelist  is  to  be  ranked 
among  the  supreme  leaders,  worthy  to  stand  by  the 
side  of  Cervantes  and  Fielding,  Balzac  and  Tolstoi. 
The  merits  of  the  women  novelists  are  many  and  they 
are  beyond  cavil;  but  no  one  of  them  has  yet  been 
able  to  handle  a  large  theme  powerfully  and  to  in- 
terpret life  with  the  imhasting  and  unresting  strength 
which  is  the  distinguishing  mark  of  the  mightier  mas- 
ters of  fiction. 

119 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 


in 

Furthennore,  we  find  in  the  works  of  female  story- 
tellers not  only  a  lack  of  largeness  in  topic,  but  also  a 
lack  of  strictness  in  treatment.  Their  stories,  even 
when  they  charm  us  with  apt  portraiture  and  with 
adroit  situation,  are  likely  to  lack  solidity  of  structure. 
'Castle  Rackrent,'  an  illuminating  picture  of  human 
nature  in  a  special  environment,  is  a  straggling  sequence 
of  episodes;  *  Pride  and  Prejudice'  is  almost  plotless, 
when  considered  as  a  whole;  and  'Romola'  is  ill- 
proportioned  and  misshapen.  No  woman  has  ever 
achieved  the  elaborate  soHdity  of  'Tom  Jones,'  the 
superb  structure  of  the  'Scarlet  Letter,*  or  the  simple 
imity  of  'Smoke.'  And  here  we  come  close  to  the  most 
obvious  explanation  of  the  dearth  of  female  dramatists 
— ^in  the  relative  incapacity  of  women  to  build  a  plan, 
to  make  a  single  whole  compounded  of  many  parts, 
and  yet  dominated  in  every  detail  by  but  one  purpose. 

The  drama  demands  a  plot,  with  a  beginning,  a 
middle,  and  an  end,  and  with  everything  rigorously 
excluded  which  does  not  lead  from  the  beginning  thru 
the  middle  to  the  end.  The  novel  refuses  to  submit 
itself  to  any  such  requirement;  it  can  make  shift  to 
exist  without  an  articulated  skeleton.  There  is  little 
or  no  plot,  there  is  only  a  casual  succession  of  more  or 
less  unrelated  incidents  in  'Gil  Bias'  and  'Tristram 
Shandy,'  in  the  'Pickwick  Papers,'  and  in  'Huckle- 
berry Finn.'    The  novel  may  be  invertebrate  and  yet 

120 


WOMEN    DRAMATISTS 

survive,  whereas  the  play  without  a  backbone  is  dead 
— ^which  is  biologic  evidence  that  the  drama  is  higher 
in  the  scale  of  creation  than  prose  fiction. 

"The  novel;  as  practised  in  English,  is  the  perfect 
paradise  of  the  loose  end,"  so  Mr.  Henry  James  once 
pointed  out,  whereas  "the  play  consents  to  the  logic 
of  but  one  way,  mathematically  right,  and  with  the 
loose  end  as  gross  an  impertinence  on  its  surface  and 
as  grave  a  dishonor  as  the  dangle  of  a  snippet  of  silk 
or  wool  on  the  right  side  of  a  tapestry."  The  action 
of  a  story  may  be  what  its  writer  pleases,  and  he  can 
reduce  it  to  a  minimum  or  embroider  it  at  will  with 
airy  arabesques  of  incessant  digression;  but  the  plot 
of  a  play  must  be  a  straight  line,  the  shortest  distance 
between  two  points,  the  point  of  departure  and  the 
point  of  arrival.  And  it  is  because  of  this  imperative 
necessity  for  integrity  of  construction  that  the  drama 
is  more  difficult  than  prose  fiction.  Since  a  part  of  our 
pleasiue  in  any  art  is  derived  from  our  consciousness  of 
the  obstacles  to  be  overcome  by  the  artist,  and  from 
our  recognition  of  the  skill  displayed  by  him  in  van- 
quishing them,  we  have  here  added  evidence  in  behalf 
of  the  behef  in  the  artistic  superiority  of  the  play  over 
the  novel  merely  as  a  form  of  expression. 

The  drama  may  be  likened  to  the  sister  art  of  archi- 
tecture in  its  insistent  demand  for  plan  and  propor- 
tion. A  play  is  a  poor  thing,  likely  to  expire  of  inani- 
tion, unless  its  author  is  possessed  of  the  ability  to 
build  a  plot  which  shall  be  strong  and  simple  and  clear, 
and  unless  he  has  the  faculty  of  enriching  it  with  abun- 

121 


A   BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

dant  accessories  in  accord  with  a  scheme  thought  out 
in  advance  and  adhered  to  from  start  to  finish.  With 
this  constructive  skill  women  seem  to  be  less  liberally 
endowed  than  men;  at  least,  they  have  not  yet  re- 
vealed themselves  as  architects,  altho  they  have  won 
a  warm  welcome  as  decorators — a  subordinate  art  for 
which  they  are  fitted  by  their  superior  deHcacy  and  by 
their  keener  interest  in  details.  Much  of  the  pervasive 
charm  of  many  of  the  cleverest  novels  of  female  author- 
ship lies  in  the  persistent  ingenuity  with  which  the 
lesser  points  of  character,  of  conduct,  and  of  manners 
are  presented.  In  Jane  Austen,  in  Maria  Edgeworth, 
and  often  also  in  George  EHot,  we  are  deHghted  by 
little  miracles  of  observation,  and  by  Httle  trimnphs 
in  the  microscopic  analysis  of  subtle  and  unsuspected 
motives.  But  in  these  very  books,  the  story,  however 
felicitously  decorated,  is  not  sustained  by  a  severe 
architectural  framework.  And  it  is  this  firm  cer- 
tainty of  structure  that  the  drama  imperatively  de- 
mands. 

In  other  words,  women  seem  to  be  less  often  dowered 
than  men  with  what  Tyndall  called  "scientific  imagina- 
tion," with  the  abihty  to  put  together  a  whole  in  which 
the  several  parts  are  never  permitted  to  distend  a 
disproportionate  space.  This  scientific  imagination  is 
essential  to  the  playwright;  and  the  novelist  is  fortunate 
if  he  also  possesses  it,  altho  it  is  not  essential  to  him. 
A  novel  may  be  only  a  straggling  succession  of  episodes; 
a  play  must  have  fundamental  unity.  A  novelist  may 
fire  with  a  shot-gun  and  bring  down  his  bird  on  the 

122 


WOMEN    DRAMATISTS 

wing,  whereas  a  playwright  needs  a  rifle  to  arrest  the 
charging  Hon. 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  only  once  was  George 
Sand  really  triumphant  as  a  dramatist,  and  that  this 
single  success  was  won  by  the  secret  aid  of  the  cleverest 
of  contemporary  playwrights.  She  was  passionately 
devoted  to  the  theater;  she  had  many  intimate  friends 
among  the  stage-folk;  she  dehghted  in  private  theatri- 
cals; and  she  wrote  a  dozen  or  more  plays,  several  of 
them  dramatized  from  her  own  stories.  The  sole  play 
which  held  its  own  on  the  stage  in  rivalry  with  the 
best  work  of  Augier  and  Dumas  Jils  was  the  '  Marquis 
de  Villemer,*  and  it  owed  its  more  fortunate  fate  to 
the  gratuitous  and  unacknowledged  collaboration  of 
Dimias  fils. 

For  the  author  of  the  'Mariage  de  Victorine,'  the 
author  of  the  'Dame  aux  Cam^Kas'  had  a  high  esteem, 
which  he  took  occasion  to  express  more  than  once  in 
his  critical  papers;  and  she  regarded  him  with  semi- 
matemaJ  affection,  often  inviting  him  to  join  the  Uttle 
parties  at  Nohant.  On  one  of  his  visits  he  heard  her 
say  that  she  was  intending  to  dramatize  the  'Marquis 
de  Villemer/  but  that  she  did  not  quite  see  her  way 
to  compact  its  leisurely  action  in  conformity  with  the 
rigid  restrictions  of  the  stage.  That  evening  he  bor- 
rowed a  copy  of  the  novel  to  take  up  to  his  own  room; 
and  the  next  morning  when  he  came  down  to  the  late 
breakfast,  he  laid  before  her  half  a  dozen  sheets  of 
paper,  whereon  she  found  a  complete  scenario  for  her 
guidance,  an  adroit  division  of  her  novel  into  acts  and 

123 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

scenes,  needing  only  to  be  clothed  with  dialog.  With 
his  intuitive  understanding  of  the  principles  of  play- 
making,  and  with  his  masterly  power  of  construction, 
he  had  solved  her  problems  for  her  and  made  it  easy 
for  her  to  write  the  play. 

Here  is  an  unexampled  kind  of  collaboration,  since 
the  invention  of  the  story,  the  creation  of  the  char- 
acters, the  dialog  to  be  spoken — these  were  all  due  to 
George  Sand  alone;  but  the  concentrating  of  the  in- 
terest, the  heightening  of  the  personages  of  the  narra- 
tive to  adjust  themselves  to  the  perspective  of  the 
theater,  the  serried  and  irresistible  momentum  of  the 
action — these  were  the  contribution  of  Dumas,  a  free- 
will offering  to  his  old  friend.  The  piece  that  she  wrote 
was  hers  and  hers  alone,  and  yet  it  had  a  dramatic 
vitality  lacking  in  all  her  other  plays,  because  a  man 
had  intervened  at  the  right  moment  to  provide  the 
architectural  framework  which  the  woman  could  not 
have  bestowed  upon  it,  however  feUcitous  she  might 
be  in  the  decoration. 

IV 

Thus  it  is  that  we  can  supply  two  answers  to  the  two 
questions  posed  at  the  beginning  of  this  inquiry:  Why 
is  it  that  there  are  so  few  women  playwrights?  And 
why  is  it  that  the  infrequent  plays  produced  by  women 
playwrights  rarely  attain  high  rank  ?  The  explanation 
is  to  be  found  in  two  facts:  first,  the  fact  that  women 
are  likely  to  have  only  a  definitely  limited  knowledge 

124 


WOMEN    DRAMATISTS 

of  life,  and,  second,  the  fact  that  they  are  likely  also  to 
be  more  or  less  deficient  in  the  faculty  of  construction. 
The  first  of  these  disabihties  may  tend  to  disappear  if 
ever  the  feminist  movement  shall  achieve  its  ultimate 
victory;  and  the  second  may  depart  also  whenever 
women  submit  themselves  to  the  severe  discipline 
which  has  compelled  men  to  be  more  or  less  logical. 

(1915.) 


125 


vni 

THE  EVOLUTION  OF  SCENE-PAINTING 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  SCENE-PAINTING 


Only  recently  have  students  of  the  stage  seized  the 
full  significance  of  the  fact  that  dramatic  literature  is 
always  conditioned  by  the  circumstances  of  the  special 
theater  for  which  it  was  designed.  They  are  at  last 
beginning  to  perceive  that  they  need  to  know  how  a 
play  was  originally  represented  by  actors  before  an 
audience  and  in  a  theater  to  enable  them  to  appreciate 
adequately  the  technical  skill  of  the  playwright  who 
composed  it.  The  dramatist  is  subdued  to  what  he 
works  in;  and  he  can  accomplish  only  that  which  is 
possible  in  the  particular  playhouse  for  which  his 
pieces  were  destined.  For  the  immense  open  air  audi- 
torium of  ancient  Athens,  with  its  orchestra  leveled 
at  the  foot  of  the  curving  hillside  whereon  thousands 
of  spectators  took  their  places,  the  dramatic  poet  had 
to  select  a  simple  story  and  to  build  massively.  For  the 
imadomed  platform  of  the  Tudor  theater,  with  its 
arras  pendent  from  the  gallery  above  the  stage,  and 
with  its  restless  groundlings  standing  in  the  yard, 
the  playwright  was  compelled  to  heap  up  swift  episodes 
violent  with  action.  For  the  eighteenth-century  play- 
house, with  its  apron  projecting  far  beyond  the  line  of 
the  curtain,  the  dramatist  was  tempted  to  revel  in 

129 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

ornate  eloquence  and  in  elaborate  wit.  And  nowadays 
the  dramatic  author  utilizes  skilfully  all  the  manifold 
resources  of  the  twentieth-century  picture-frame  stage, 
not  only  to  give  external  reality  to  the  several  places 
where  his  story  is  supposed  to  be  laid,  but  also  to  lend 
to  these  stage-sets  the  characteristic  atmosphere  de- 
manded by  his  theme. 

Merely  literary  critics,  secluded  in  their  studies,  in- 
tent upon  the  poetry  of  a  play  and  desirous  of  deducing 
its  philosophy,  rarely  seek  to  visualize  a  performance 
on  the  stage,  and  they  are,  therefore,  inclined  to  be 
disdainful  of  the  purely  theatrical  conditions  to  which 
its  author  has  had,  perforce,  to  adjust  his  work.  As 
a  result  they  sometimes  misunderstand  the  dramatic 
poet's  endeavors,  and  they  often  misinterpret  his  in- 
tentions. On  the  other  hand,  purely  theatrical  critics 
may  be  inclined  to  pay  too  much  attention  to  stage- 
arrangements,  stage-business,  and  stage-settings,  and 
even  on  occasion  to  disregard  the  dramatist's  message 
and  his  power  of  creating  character  to  consider  his  tech- 
nic  alone.  And  yet  it  can  scarcely  be  denied  that  the 
theatrical  critics  are  nearer  to  the  proper  method  of 
approach  than  the  literary  critics  who  neglect  the  light 
which  a  careful  consideration  of  stage-conditions  and 
of  stage-traditions  may  cast  upon  the  masterpieces  of 
the  drama. 

Since  all  these  masterpieces  of  the  drama  were  de- 
vised to  be  heard  and  to  be  seen  rather  than  to  be  read, 
the  great  dramatic  poets  have  always  been  solicitous 
about  the  visual  appeal  of  their  plays.    They  have  ever 

130 


EVOLUTION    OF    SCENE-PAINTING 

been  anxious  to  garnish  their  pieces  with  the  utmost 
scenic  embellishment  and  the  utmost  spectacular  ac- 
companiment of  the  special  kind  that  a  play  of  that 
particular  type  could  profit  by.  In  view  of  the  im- 
portance of  this  scenic  embellishment  and  of  its  in- 
fluence upon  the  methods  of  the  successive  plaj^wrights, 
there  is  cause  for  wonder  that  we  have  no  satisfactory 
attempt  to  tell  the  history  of  the  art  of  the  scene- 
painter  as  this  has  been  developed  thru  the  long  ages. 
The  materials  for  this  narrative  are  abundant,  even  if 
they  still  lie  in  confusion.  Certain  parts  of  the  field 
have  been  surveyed  here  and  there;  but  no  substan- 
tial treatise  has  yet  been  devoted  to  this  alluring  in- 
vestigation. The  scholar  who  shall  hereafter  under- 
take the  task  will  need  a  double  qualification;  he  must 
master  the  annals  of  painting  in  Renascence  Italy,  and 
later  in  France  and  in  England,  and  he  must  familiarize 
himself  with  the  circumstances  of  the  theater  at  the 
several  periods  when  the  art  of  the  scene-painter  made 
its  successive  steps  in  advance. 

It  is  partly  because  we  have  no  manual  covering 
the  whole  field  that  we  find  so  many  unwarranted  asser- 
tions in  the  studies  of  the  scholars  who  confine  their 
criticism  to  a  single  period  of  the  development  of  the 
drama.  Partly  also  is  this  due  to  the  fact  that  we  are 
each  of  us  so  accustomed  to  the  theaters  of  our  own 
century  and  of  our  own  country  that  we  find  it  diffi- 
cult not  to  assume  similar  conditions  in  the  theaters 
of  other  centuries  and  other  countries.  Thus  the 
Shaksperian  conamentators  of  the  early  eighteenth  cen- 

131 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

tury  seem  not  to  have  doubted  that  the  EngHsh  play- 
house in  the  days  of  Elizabeth  was  not  unhke  the  Eng- 
lish playhouse  in  the  days  of  Anne;  and  as  a  result 
they  cut  up  the  plays  of  Shakspere  into  acts  and  into 
scenes,  each  supposed  to  take  place  in  a  different  spot, 
in  accord  with  the  eighteenth-century  stage  practise, 
and  absolutely  without  any  justification  from  the 
customs  of  the  Tudor  theater.  This  was  the  result 
of  looking  back  and  of  believing  that  the  late  sixteenth- 
century  stage  must  have  resembled  the  early  eigh- 
teenth-century stage.  We  are  now  beginning  to  see 
that,  in  any  effort  to  recapture  the  methods  of  the 
Elizabethan  theater,  we  must  first  understand  the 
customs  of  the  medieval  stage,  and  then  look  for- 
ward from  that  point.  Of  all  places  in  the  world  the 
playhouse  is,  perhaps,  the  most  conservative,  and  the 
most  reluctant  to  relinquish  anything  which  has  proved 
its  utility  in  the  past  and  which  is  accepted  by  the 
pubHc  in  the  present;  and  many  of  the  peculiarities 
of  the  Tudor  theater  are  survivals  from  the  medieval 
performances. 

There  are  still  to  be  found  classical  scholars  who 
accept  the  existence  of  a  raised  stage  in  the  theater  of 
Dionysus  at  Athens,  and  even  of  painted  scenery  such 
as  we  modems  know;  and  they  find  support  in  the  as- 
sertion of  Aristotle  that  among  the  improvements  due 
to  Sophocles  was  the  introduction  of  "scenery."  But 
what  did  the  Greek  word  in  the  text  of  Aristotle  which 
is  rendered  into  English  as  "scenery"  really  mean? 
At  least,  what  did  it  connote  to  an  Athenian?    Some- 

132 


EVOLUTION    OF    SCENE-PAINTING 

thing  very  different,  we  may  be  sure,  from  what  the 
term  "scenery"  connotes  to  us.  Certainly,  the  physi- 
cal conditions  of  the  stageless  Attic  theater  precluded 
the  possibilities  of  painted  scenes  such  as  we  are  now 
familiar  with.  That  there  were  no  methods  of  rep- 
resenting reahstically,  or  even  sunomarily,  the  locality 
where  the  action  is  taking  place  is  proved  by  the  de- 
tailed descriptions  of  these  localities  which  the  dramatic 
poet  was  careful  to  put  into  the  mouths  of  his  charac- 
ters whenever  he  wished  the  audience  to  visualize  the 
appropriate  background  of  the  action.  We  may  be 
assured  that  the  dramatists  would  never  have  wasted 
time  in  describing  what  the  spectators  had  before  their 
eyes.  Ibsen  and  Rostand  and  d'Annimzio  are  poets, 
each  in  his  own  fashion,  but  their  plays  are  devoid  of 
all  descriptions  of  the  special  locality  where  the  action 
passes — that  task  has  been  spared  them  by  the  labors 
of  the  modem  scene-painter  working  upon  their  specific 
directions. 

As  there  was  no  scenery  in  the  Greek  theater  so 
there  was  little  or  none  in  the  Roman.  M.  Camille 
Saint-Saens  once  suggested  that  certain  airy  scaffold- 
ings in  the  Pompeian  wall-paintings  were  perhaps  de- 
rived from  scenic  accessories.  But  this  seems  unlikely 
enough;  and  the  surviving  Latiu  playhouses  have  a 
wide  and  shallow  stage  closed  in  by  a  sumptuous  archi- 
tectural background,  suggesting  the  front  of  a  palace 
with  three  portals,  often  conveniently  utiHzed  as  the 
entrances  to  the  separate  dwellings  of  the  several  char- 
acters.   Again,  we  may  infer  the  absence  of  scenery 

133 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

from  the  elaboration  with  which  Plautus,  for  one,  local- 
izes the  habitations  of  his  leading  characters.  In 
Rome,  as  in  Athens,  some  kind  of  a  summary  indica- 
tion of  locality,  some  easily  miderstood  symbol,  may 
have  been  employed;  but  of  scene-painting,  as  we 
modems  know  the  art,  there  is  not  a  trace. 

II 

It  is  not  until  we  come  to  the  mysteries  of  the  Middle 
Ages  that  we  find  the  beginnings  of  the  modern  art, 
and  even  here  it  is  only  a  most  rudimentary  attempt 
that  we  can  discover.  The  mystery  probably  developed 
eariiest  in  France,  as  it  certainly  flourished  there  most 
abundantly;  and  the  French  represented  the  drama- 
tized Bible  story  on  a  long,  shallow  platform,  at  the 
back  of  which  they  strung  along  a  row  of  summary 
indications  of  certain  necessary  places,  beginning  with 
Heaven  on  the  spectator's  left,  and  ending  with  Hell 
on  his  right,  and  including  the  Temple,  the  house  of 
the  high  priest  and  the  palace  of  Herod.  These  neces- 
sary places  were  called  "mansions,"  and  they  served 
to  localize  the  action  whenever  this  was  deemed  ad- 
visable, the  front  of  the  platform  remaining  a  neutral 
ground  which  might  be  anywhere.  But  these  man- 
sions do  not  prove  the  existence  of  scene-painters; 
they  were  very  slight  erections,  a  canopy  over  an  altar 
serving  to  indicate, the  Temple,  and  a  little  portico 
sufficing  to  represent  a  palace;  and  they  were  probably 
built    by    house-carpenters    and    painted   by   house- 

134 


The  Roman  Theater  at  Orange 
From  the  model  at  the  Paris  Op6ra 


The  multiple  set  of  the  French  medieval  stage 
From  the  model  in  the  Dramatic  Museum  of  Columbia  University 


The  set  of  the  Italian  comedy  of  masks 


EVOLUTION    OF    SCENE-PAINTING 

painters,  just  as  any  boat  which  might  be  called  for 
would  be  constructed  by  the  shipwrights. 

And  as  we  need  not  assume  the  forming  of  a  guild 
of  scene-painters  because  of  these  mansions  which 
performed  some  of  the  functions  of  our  modern  scenery, 
so  also  we  must  not  assume  it  because  the  medieval 
artisans  invented  a  variety  of  elaborate  spectacular 
devices,  flying  angels,  for  example,  and  roaring  flames 
from  Hell-Mouth.  Even  in  the  stageless  and  scene- 
less  Attic  theater,  there  had  been  many  mechanical 
effects  of  one  kind  or  another,  especially  in  the  plays 
of  Euripides — ^the  soaring  dragon-chariot  of  Medea, 
for  instance,  and  the  similar  contrivance  whereby  a 
god  might  descend  from  the  skies.  Mechanical  tricks 
even  when  they  are  most  ingenious,  do  not  imply  the 
aid  of  the  scene-painter;  and  even  to-day  they  are  the 
special  task  of  the  property-man,  or  of  the  master- 
mechanic,  altho  the  scene-painter's  aid  may  be  in- 
voked also  to  make  them  more  effective.  That  there 
were  property-makers  in  the  Middle  Ages  admits  of 
no  doubt,  and  also  highly  skilled  artificers  dehghting 
in  the  daring  ingenuity  of  their  inventions.  There  were 
abundant  properties,  it  may  be  noted,  on  the  Eliza- 
bethan stage,  well-heads,  thrones,  and  arbors;  and 
Henslow's  diary  records  payment  for  a  variety  of  such 
accessories.  But  there  is  not  in  that  invaluable  docu- 
ment a  single  entry  indicating  any  payment  for  any- 
thing equivalent  to  the  work  of  the  scene-painter. 

Adroit  as  were  the  French  mechanics  who  prepared 
the  abundant  spectacular  effects  of  the  medieval  mys- 

135 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

teries,  they  were  surpassed  in  skill  by  the  Itahan  en- 
gineers of  the  Renascence,  who  lent  their  aid  to  the 
superb  outdoor  festivals  wherein  the  expanding  artis- 
tic energy  of  the  period  was  most  magnificently  dis- 
played. Leonardo  da  Vinci  did  not  disdain  to  design 
machines  disclosing  a  surprising  fertility  of  resource. 
It  was  from  those  outdoor  spectacles  of  the  Italians 
that  the  French  court-ballets  are  directly  descended, 
and  also  the  English  masks,  which  demanded  the  col- 
laboration of  Inigo  Jones  and  Ben  Jonson.  But  at 
first  the  Italians  got  along  without  the  aid  of  the  yet 
imbom  scene-painter,  and  the  inventions  of  the  en- 
gineer were  carried  out  by  the  mechanic  and  the  dec- 
orator. Even  as  late  as  the  seventeenth  century  a 
magnificent  spectacle  presented  in  the  garden  of  the 
Pitti  Palace  in  Florence  rehed  mainly  upon  the  in- 
genious engineer  and  scarcely  at  all  upon  the  scene- 
painter.  It  seems  probable  that  it  is  here  in  Italy  in 
the  Renascence,  and  at  first  as  an  accompaniment  of 
the  outdoor  spectacle,  or  of  its  indoor  rival,  that  the 
art  of  the  actual  scene-painter  had  its  birth.  The  en- 
gineers required  the  aid  of  the  artists — ^indeed,  in  those 
days,  when  there  was  httle  speciahzation  of  function, 
the  engineers  were  almost  always  artists  themselves, 
capable  of  their  own  decoration. 

In  time  there  would  be  necessary  specialization,  and 
after  a  while  certain  artists  came  to  devote  themselves 
chiefly  to  scene-painting,  finding  their  immediate  op- 
portunity in  the  decoration  of  the  operas,  which  then 
began  to  multiply.    The  opera  has  always  been  aris- 

136 


Ph     b 


o  ^    S 


~       fe 


< 


EVOLUTION    OF    SCENE-PAINTING 

tocratic,  expensive,  and  spectacular,  and  it  continued 
the  tradition  of  the  highly  decorated  open-air  festivals. 
In  fact,  it  improved  upon  this  tradition,  in  so  far  as 
that  was  possible,  and  it  achieved  a  variety  of  mechan- 
ical effects  scarcely  less  complicated  than  those  which 
charm  our  eyes  to-day  in  'Rheingold'  and  'Parsifal.' 
Thirty  years  ago  the  late  Charles  Nuitter,  the  archivist 
of  the  Paris  Op^ra  and  himself  a  librettist  of  wide  ex- 
perience, drew  my  attention  to  Sabbatini's  'Practica  di 
fabricar  scene  e  machini  ne'  teatri'  (published  in  1638), 
and  he  assured  me  that  the  resources  of  the  Op^ra  did 
not  go  beyond  those  which  were  at  the  command  of  the 
ItaHans  three  centuries  earHer.  "They  could  do  then," 
he  asserted,  "almost  everything  that  we  can  do  now 
here  at  the  Op^ra.  For  example,  they  could  bring  a 
ship  on  the  stage  xmder  full  sail.  We  have  only  one 
superiority  over  them:  we  have  abundant  light  now, 
we  have  electricity,  and  they  were  dependent  on  candles 
and  lamps." 

Yet  even  in  Italy  in  the  Renascence  the  most  pop- 
ular form  of  the  drama,  the  improvised  play  which  we 
call  the  comedy-of-masks,  was  performed  in  a  tradi- 
tional stage-setting  representing  an  open  square, 
whereon  only  the  back-cloth  seems  to  have  been  the 
work  of  the  scene-painter,  the  sides  of  the  stage  being 
occupied  by  four  or  more  houses,  two  or  three  on  each 
side,  often  consisting  of  Httle  more  than  a  practicable 
door  with  a  practicable  window  over  it,  not  made  of 
canvas,  but  constructed  out  of  wood  by  the  carpenter, 
with  the  soHdity  demanded  by  the  climbing  feats  of 

137 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

the  athletic  comedians  and  by  their  acrobatic  agihty. 
The  traditional  set  of  the  comedy-of-masks  conformed 
to  that  recommended  for  the  comic  drama  by  Serlio, 
in  his  treatise  on  architectm-e,  published  in  1545;  but 
it  may  be  noted  also  that  Serlio's  suggested  set  for  the 
tragic  drama  was  not  dissimilar  even  if  it  were  dis- 
tinctly more  dignified. 

m 

The  opera  seems  to  have  been  the  direct  descendant 
of  the  court-ballet,  known  in  England  as  the  mask, 
as  that  in  its  turn  was  derived  from  the  open-air  spec- 
tacle of  the  Italian  Renascence,  such  as  survived  in 
Florence  in  the  seventeenth  century.  In  the  begin- 
ning the  court-ballets  of  France,  like  the  masks  of  Eng- 
land, were  not  given  in  a  theater  with  a  stage  shut  off 
by  a  proscenium  arch,  but  in  the  ball-room  or  ban- 
queting-hall  of  a  palace.  One  end  of  this  spacious 
apartment,  often  but  not  always  provided  with  a 
raised  platform,  served  as  the  stage  whereon  one  or 
more  places,  a  mountain,  for  instance,  and  a  grotto, 
were  represented,  at  first  by  the  decorated  machines  of 
the  artistic  engineers  only,  but  afterward  by  the  canvas 
frames  of  scene-painters.  The  action  of  the  court- 
ballets  or  of  the  masks  was  not  necessarily  confined  to 
this  stage,  so  to  call  it.  The  spectators  were  ranged 
along  the  walls  and  under  the  galleries  (if  there  were 
any),  leaving  the  main  part  of  the  hall  bare;  and  the 
performers  descended  frequently  into  this  area,  which 

13S 


EVOLUTION    OF    SCENE-PAINTING 

was  kept  free  for  them,  and  which  was  better  fitted  for 
their  dances  and  processions  and  other  intricate  evo- 
lutions than  the  scant  and  cluttered  stage. 

A  twentieth-centur}'-  analog  to  this  sixteenth-century 
practise  can  be  seen  in  the  spectacle  presented  in  our 
modern  three-ringed  circuses — the  'Cleopatra/  for  ex- 
ample, which  was  the  opening  number  on  the  Barnum 
and  Bailey  program  not  long  ago,  where  the  Roman 
troops  and  the  Egyptian  populace  came  down  from  the 
stage  and  paraded  around  the  arena.  Bacon  in  his 
essay  on  'Masques,'  used  the  word  "scenery"  as  tho 
he  meant  only  decorated  scaffolds,  perhaps  movable; 
and  his  expression  of  desire  for  room  "to  be  kept  clear" 
implies  the  use  of  the  body  of  the  hall  for  the  maneu- 
vers of  the  performers.  Ludovic  Celler,  in  his  study  of 
*  Mise  en  scene  au  dix-septieme  siecle '  in  France,  shows 
that  the  action  of  the  court-ballet  was  sometimes  inter- 
mitted that  the  spectators  could  join  in  the  dancing, 
as  at  an  ordinary  ball.  In  the  earlier  ItaUan  open-air 
festivals,  and  in  the  earlier  French  court-ballets  there 
was  not  even  a  proscenium  sharply  separating  the 
stage  from  the  rest  of  the  hall;  but  in  England  by  the 
time  of  Inigo  Jones  the  advantage  of  a  proscenium 
had  been  discovered,  and  we  have  more  than  one  of 
the  sketches  which  that  skilful  designer  devised  for 
his  masks.  But  even  then  this  proscenium  was  not 
permanent  and  architecturally  conventionalized;  it  was 
invented  afresh  for  every  successive  entertainment, 
and  it  was  adorned  with  devices  peculiar  to  that  par- 
ticular mask.    Inigo  Jones  had  also  advanced  to  the 

139 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

use  of  actual  scenery,  that  is  to  say,  of  canvas  stretched 
upon  frames  and  then  painted.  Mr.  Hamilton  Bell 
believes  it  possible  that  the  invention  of  grooves  to 
sustain  wings  and  flats  may  be  ascribed  to  Inigo  or  to 
his  assistant  and  successor,  Webb. 

Even  in  the  Italian  opera,  where  all  the  scenery  was 
due  to  the  brush  of  the  scene-painter,  there  was  for  a 
long  while  a  formal  and  monotonous  regularity. 
Whether  the  set  was  an  interior  or  an  exterior,  a  public 
place  or  a  hall  in  a  palace,  the  arrangement  was  rec- 
tangular, with  a  drop  at  the  back  and  a  series  of  wings 
on  either  side  equidistant  from  one  another.  This  stiff 
representation  of  a  locality  is  preserved  for  us  nowadays 
in  the  toy-theaters  which  we  buy  for  our  children, 
altho  it  is  now  seen  on  the  actual  stage  only  in  certain 
acts  of  old-fashioned  operas.  It  lingers  also  in  the 
variety-shows,  where  it  is  the  proper  setting  for  many 
items  of  their  miscellaneous  programs. 

Altho  the  Italians  had  discovered  perspective  early 
in  the  Renascence  they  utilized  it  on  the  stage  timidly 
at  first,  bestowing  this  rectangular  regularity  upon  all 
their  sets,  both  architectiu^al  interiors  or  exteriors  and 
rural  scenes,  in  which  rigid  wood-wings  receded,  dimin- 
ishing in  height  to  a  landscape  painted  on  the  drop  at 
the  back,  thus  leaving  the  whole  stage  free  for  the  actors. 
Not  until  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  did  an 
Italian  scene-painter,  Bibiena,  venture  to  abandon  the 
balanced  symmetry  of  the  square  set,  and  to  slant  his 
perspective  so  as  to  present  buildings  at  an  acute  angle, 
thereby  not  only  gaining  a  pleasing  variety,  but  also 

140 


The  set  for  the  opera  of  'Persee'  (as  performed  at  the 
Opera  in  Paris  in  the  seventeenth  century) 


aigjliiiillii^^ 


A  prison  (designed  by  Bihiena  in  Italy  in  the 
eighteenth  century) 


EVOLUTION    OF    SCENE-PAINTING 

enlarging  immensely  the  apparent  spaciousness  of  the 
scene,  since  he  was  able  to  carry  the  eyes  of  the  spec- 
tator into  vague  distances,  and  to  suggest  far  more 
than  he  was  able  to  display.  This  advance  was  accom- 
panied by  a  more  Hberal  use  of  stairways  and  platforms 
— "practicables"  as  the  stage-phrase  is — that  is  to  say, 
built  up  by  the  carpenters  so  that  the  actors  could  go 
from  one  level  to  another.  Hitherto  flights  of  steps 
and  balconies  had  been  only  painted,  not  being  intended 
for  actual  use  by  the  performers. 

A  similar  development  took  place  also  in  the  land- 
scape scenes;  the  foreground  was  raised  irregularly,  so 
that  the  persons  of  the  play  might  climb  up.  Prac- 
ticable bridges  were  swung  across  torrents,  and  the 
earlier  formahty  of  pastoral  scenes  began  to  disappear. 
Apparently  the  scene-painters  were  influenced  at  this 
time  by  the  landscape-painters,  more  especially  by 
Poussin.  The  interrelation  of  painting  and  scene- 
painting,  each  in  turn  affecting  the  other,  is  far  closer 
than  most  historians  of  art  have  perceived.  It  is  not 
unlikely,  for  example,  that  Gainsborough  and  Con- 
stable, who  were  the  fathers  of  the  Barbizon  men,  had 
been  stimulated  by  the  stage-pictures  of  De  Luther- 
boiu-g.  David  Garrick  profited  by  the  innovating  art 
of  De  Lutherbourg,  a  pupil  of  Vanloo,  who  came  to 
England  in  1771,  Apparently  it  was  De  Lutherbourg 
who  invented  "  raking-pieces " — as  the  scene-painters 
term  the  low  fragments  of  scenery  which  mask  the  in- 
clines of  mounds.  To  him  also  is  credited  the  first 
use  of  transparent  scenes  to  reproduce  the  effect  of 

141 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

moonlight  upon  water,  and  to  suggest  the  flames  of 
volcanoes.  Thus  to  him  must  be  ascribed  the  begin- 
nings of  that  complicated  realism  by  which  our  latter- 
day  scene-painters  are  enabled  to  create  an  appropriate 
atmosphere  for  poetic  episodes. 

IV 

The  next  step  in  advance,  and  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant in  the  slow  development  of  the  scene-painter's 
art,  took  place  in  France  early  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, and  simultaneous  with  the  romanticist  move- 
ment, which  modified  the  aims  and  ambitions  of  the 
artists  as  much  as  it  did  those  of  the  poets.  The 
severe  stateliness  of  the  stage-set  which  was  adequate 
for  the  classicist  tragedies  of  Racine  and  Voltaire, 
generally  a  vague  interior  of  an  indefinite  palace,  stiff 
and  empty,  was  hopelessly  unsuitable  for  the  fiery 
dramas  of  Victor  Hugo  and  the  elder  Dumas.  An 
even  greater  opportunity  for  spectacular  regeneration 
was  afforded,  in  these  same  early  decades  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  by  the  bold  and  moving  librettos  wliich 
Scribe  constructed  for  Meyerbeer  and  Hal^vy  at  the 
Op^ra,  and  for  Auber  at  the  Op6ra-Comique.  The 
exciting  cause  of  the  scenic  complexities  that  we  find 
in  Wagner's  music-dramas  can  be  discovered  in  these 
librettos  of  Scribe's,  from  'Robert  the  Devil'  to  the 
'Africaine.'  For  one  act  of  'Robert  the  Devil,'  that  in 
which  the  spectral  nuns  dance  among  the  tombs  under 
the  rays  of  the  moon,  Ciceri  invented  the  most  striking 

142 


EVOLUTION    OF    SCENE-PAINTING 

and  novel  setting  yet  exhibited  on  any  stage — a  setting 
not  surpassed  in  poetic  glamor  by  any  since  seen  in  the 
theater,  altho  its  eery  beauty  may  have  been  rivaled  by 
one  scene  in  the  'Som'ce/  a  ballet  produced  also  at  the 
Op^ra  forty-five  years  ago — a  moon-Ut  tarn  in  a  forest- 
glade,  with  half-seen  sylphs  floating  lightly  over  its 
silvered  surface.  This  exquisitely  poetic  set  was  im- 
ported from  Paris  to  New  York  and  inserted  in  the 
briUiant  spectacle  of  the  'White  Fawn.' 

The  ample  effect  of  these  scenes  was  made  possible 
only  by  the  immense  improvement  in  the  illumination 
of  the  stage  due  to  the  introduction  of  gas.  Up  to  the 
first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  stage- 
decorator  had  been  dependent  upon  lamps — a  few  of 
these  arranged  at  the  rim  of  the  curving  apron  which 
jutted  out  into  the  auditorium  far  beyond  the  pros- 
cenium, and  a  few  more  hidden  here  and  there  in  the 
flies  and  wings.  Early  in  the  nineteenth  century  gas 
supplanted  oil;  and  a  little  later  than  the  middle  of  the 
century  gas  was  powerfully  supplemented  by  the  cal- 
ciima  fight.  Toward  the  end  of  the  century  gas  in  its 
turn  gave  way  to  the  far  more  useful  electric  fight, 
which  could  be  directed  anywhere  in  any  quantity, 
and  which  could  be  controlled  and  colored  at  wiU.  It 
was  Henry  Irving,  more  especiaUy  in  his  marvelous 
mounting  of  a  rather  tawdry  version  of  'Faust,'  who 
revealed  the  delicate  artistic  possibilities  of  our  mod- 
em facilities  for  stage  illumination. 

In  France  the  romanticist  movement  of  Hugo  was 
swiftly  succeeded  by  the  reafistic  movement  of  Balzac, 

143 


A    BOOK   ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

who  was  the  earliest  novehst  to  relate  the  leading  per- 
sonages of  his  studies  from  life  to  a  characteristic 
background  and  to  bring  out  the  intimate  association 
of  persons  and  places.  From  prose  fiction  this  evoca- 
tion of  characteristic  surroundings  was  taken  over  by 
the  drama;  and  a  persistent  effort  was  made  to  have 
the  successive  sets  of  a  play  suggestive  and  significant 
in  themselves,  and  also  representative  of  the  main 
theme  of  the  piece.  The  actors  were  no  longer  de- 
pendent upon  the  "float,"  as  the  footlights  were  called; 
they  did  not  need  to  advance  out  on  the  apron  to  let 
the  spectators  follow  the  changing  expression  of  their 
faces,  and  in  time  the  apron  was  cut  back  to  the  line 
of  the  proscenium,  and  the  curtain  rose  and  fell  in  a 
picture-frame  which  cut  the  actors  off  from  their  prox- 
imity to  the  audience — a  proximity  forever  tempting 
the  dramatic  poet  to  the  purely  oratorical  effects  proper 
enough  on  a  platform. 

When  the  modern  play  calls  for  an  interior  this  in- 
terior now  takes  on  the  semblance  of  an  actual  room. 
Apparently  the  "box-set,"  as  it  is  called,  the  closed-in 
room  with  its  walls  and  its  ceiling,  was  first  seen  in 
England  in  1841,  when  'London  Assurance'  was  pro- 
duced; but  very  likely  it  had  earlier  made  its  appear- 
ance in  Paris  at  the  Gymnase.  To  supply  a  room  with 
walls  of  a  seeming  solidity,  with  doors  and  with  win- 
dows, appears  natural  enough  to  us,  but  it  was  a  start- 
ling innovation  fourscore  years  ago.  When  the '  School 
for  Scandal'  had  been  originally  produced  at  Drury 
Lane  in  1775,  the  Hbrary  of  Joseph  Surface,  where  Lady 

144 


E^  a 


EVOLUTION    OF    SCENE-PAINTING 

Teazle  hides  behind  the  screen,  was  represented  by  a 
drop  at  the  back,  on  which  a  window  was  painted,  and 
by  wings  set  starkly  parallel  to  this  back-drop  and 
painted  to  represent  columns.  There  were  no  doors; 
and  Joseph  and  Charles,  Sir  Peter  and  Lady  Teazle, 
walked  on  thru  the  openings  between  the  wings,  very 
much  as  tho  they  were  passing  thru  the  non-existent 
walls.  To  us,  this  would  be  shocking;  but  it  was  per- 
fectly acceptable  to  EngHsh  playgoers  then;  and  to 
them  it  seemed  natiu*al,  since  they  were  famiHar  with 
no  other  way  of  getting  into  a  room  on  the  stage. 

The  invention  of  the  box-set,  of  a  room  with  walls 
and  ceilings,  doors  and  windows,  led  inevitably  to  the 
appropriate  furnishing  of  this  room  with  tangible  tables 
and  chairs.  Even  in  the  eighteenth  century  the  stage 
had  been  very  empty;  it  was  adorned  only  with  the 
furniture  actually  demanded  by  the  action  of  the  drama; 
and  the  rest  of  the  furniture,  bookcases  and  sideboards, 
chairs  and  tables,  was  frankly  painted  on  the  wings 
and  on  the  back-drop  by  the  side  of  the  painted  mantel- 
pieces, the  painted  windows,  and  the  painted  doors.  In 
the  plays  of  the  twentieth  century  characters  sit  down 
and  change  from  seat  to  seat;  but  in  the  plays  pro- 
duced in  England  and  in  France  before  the  first  quarter 
of  the  nineteenth  century  all  the  actors  stood  all  the 
time — or  at  least  they  were  allowed  to  sit  only  imder 
the  stress  of  dramatic  necessity — as  in  the  fourth  act 
of  'Tartuffe,'  for  instance.  In  all  of  Moliere's  com- 
edies there  are  scarcely  half  a  dozen  characters  who  have 
occasion  to  sit  down;  and  this  sitting-down  is  limited 

145 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

to  three  or  four  of  his  more  than  thirty  pieces.  Now- 
adays every  effort  is  made  to  capture  the  external 
realities  of  life.  Sardou  was  not  more  careful  in  com- 
posing his  stage-sittings  in  his  fashion  than  was  Ibsen 
in  prescribing  the  scenic  environment  that  he  needed. 
The  author's  minute  descriptions  of  the  scenes  where 
the  action  of  the  ^Doll's  House'  and  of  'Ghosts'  passes 
prove  that  Ibsen  had  visualized  sharply  the  precise 
interior  which  was,  in  his  mind,  the  only  possible  home 
for  the  creatures  of  his  imagination.  And  Mr.  Belasco 
has  recently  bestowed  upon  the  winning  personality 
of  his  'Peter  Grimm'  the  exact  habitation  to  which 
that  appealing  creature  would  return  in  his  desire  to 
undo  after  death  what  in  life  he  had  rashly  commanded. 


While  the  scene-painter  of  our  time  is  most  often 
called  upon  to  realize  the  actual  in  an  interior  and  to 
delight  us  with  a  room  the  dominant  quality  of  which 
is  that  it  looks  as  tho  it  was  really  lived  in  by  the  per- 
sonages we  see  moving  around  in  it,  he  is  not  confined 
to  those  domestic  scenes.  There  are  other  plays  than 
the  modem  social  dramas;  and  these  other  plays  make 
other  demands  upon  the  artist.  On  occasion  he  has 
to  supply  a  gorgeous  scenic  accompaniment  for  the 
Roman  and  Eg5^tian  episodes  of  'Antony  and  Cleo- 
patra,' to  suggest  the  blasted  heath  where  Macbeth 
may  meet  the  weird  sisters,  and  to  call  up  before  our 
delighted  eyes  the  placid  charm  of  the  Forest  of  Arden. 

146 


A  landscape  set 
Designed  by  F.  Fontanesi  in  Italy  in  tlie  eighteenth  century 


A  set  for  the  opera  of  '  Robert  le  Diable ' 
At  tlie  Paris  Opera 


EVOLUTION    OF    SCENE-PAINTING 

The  awkward  and  inconsistent  sky-borders,  strips  of 
pendent  canvas  wholly  unsatisfactory  as  substitutes 
for  the  vast  depths  of  the  starry  heavens,  he  is  able 
to  dispense  with  by  lowering  a  little  the  hangings  at 
the  top  edge  of  the  picture-frame,  and  by  thus  limiting 
the  upward  gaze  of  the  spectators,  so  that  he  can 
forgo  the  impossible  attempt  to  imitate  the  changing 
sky.  He  can  achieve  an  effect  of  limitless  space,  as  in 
the  last  act  of  the  'Garden  of  Allah'  (which  brings  be- 
fore us  the  endless  vision  of  Sahara),  by  the  use  of  a 
cyclorama  background,  the  drop  being  suspended  from 
a  semicircular  rod  which  runs  around  the  top  of  the 
stage,  shutting  in  the  view  absolutely,  and  yet  yielding 
itself  to  a  representation  of  sand  and  sky  meeting  afar 
off  on  the  faint  horizon. 

In  the  past  half-century,  and  more  especially  since 
the  improvement  of  the  electric  Hght,  scene-painting 
has  become  very  elaborate  and  very  expensive.  In- 
stead of  being  kept  in  its  proper  place  as  the  decora- 
tion of  the  drama,  as  a  beautiful  accessory  of  the  action, 
it  has  often  been  pushed  to  the  front,  so  as  to  attract 
attention  to  itself,  and  thereby  to  distract  attention 
from  the  play  which  it  was  supposed  to  illuminate. 
Sometimes  Shakspere  has  been  smothered  in  scenery, 
and  sometimes  the  art  of  the  actor  has  been  subordi- 
nated to  the  art  of  the  scene-painter.  Now,  it  must 
be  admitted  that  nothing  is  too  good  for  the  master- 
pieces of  the  drama,  and  that  Sophocles  no  less  than 
Shakspere  ought  to  be  presented  to  the  public  with  all 
the  pomp  that  his  lofty  themes  and  his  marvelous 

147 


A   BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

workmanship  may  demand.  But  the  plays  of  the 
mighty  dramatic  poets  ought  not  to  be  used  merely  as 
pegs  on  which  to  hang  gorgeous  apparel.  After  all, 
the  play's  the  thing;  and  whenever  the  scene-painter 
and  his  invading  partner,  the  stage-manager,  are 
prompted  to  oust  the  drama  from  its  pre-eminence,  and 
to  substitute  an  exhibition  of  their  accessory  arts,  the 
result  is  a  betrayal  of  the  playwright. 

A  well-known  British  art  critic  once  told  me  that 
when  the  curtain  rose  at  a  certain  London  revival  of 
'TweKth  Night,'  and  disclosed  OHvia's  garden,  he  sat 
entranced  at  the  beauty  of  the  spectacle  before  his 
eyes,  with  its  subtle  harmonies  of  color,  so  entranced, 
indeed,  that  he  found  himself  distinctly  annoyed  when 
the  actors  came  on  the  stage  and  began  to  talk.  For 
the  moment,  at  least,  he  wished  them  away,  as  dis- 
turbers of  his  esthetic  delight  in  the  lovely  picture  on 
which  his  eyes  were  feasting.  But  even  a  stage-setting 
as  captivating  as  this  might  very  well  be  justified  if 
it  had  been  employed  to  fill  a  gap  in  the  action,  and  to 
buttress  up  the  interest  of  an  episode  where  the  dram- 
atist had  allowed  the  appeal  of  hi^  story  to  relax. 
Perrin,  the  manager  of  the  Com^die-FrauQaise  thirty 
years  ago,  declined  to  produce  a  French  version  of 
'Othello'  because  he  foimd  a  certain  dramatic  empti- 
ness in  the  scenes  at  Cyprus  at  the  opening  of  the  sec- 
ond act,  which  he  felt  he  would  have  to  mask  by  the 
beauty  of  spectacular  decoration,  too  costly  an  ex- 
pedient in  his  opinion  for  the  finances  of  the  theater 
just  then. 

148 


The  set  of  the  last  act  of  the  'Garden  of  Allah' 
From  the  model  in  the  Dramatic  Museum  of  Columbia  University 


A  set  for  'Medea' 
Designed  by  Herr  Gustav  Lindemann 


EVOLUTION    OF    SCENE-PAINTING 

It  was  Perrin,  however,  who  produced  the  French 
version  of  the  'CEdipus  the  King'  of  Sophocles,  and  who 
bestowed  upon  it  a  single  set  of  wonderful  charm  and 
power,  at  once  dignified,  appropriate,  and  beautiful 
in  itself.  It  represented  an  open  space  between  a 
temple  and  the  palace  of  the  ill-fated  (Edipus,  with  an 
altar  in  the  center,  and  with  the  profile  of  another 
temple  projected  against  the  distant  sky  and  relieved 
by  the  tall,  thin  outline  of  poplar-trees.  The  mo- 
notony of  this  rectangular  architectural  construction 
was  avoided  by  placing  all  the  buildings  on  a  slant, 
the  whole  elevation  of  the  temple  being  visible  on  the 
left  of  the  spectators,  whereas  only  a  corner  of  the 
colonnade  of  the  palace  on  the  right  was  displayed. 
This  set  at  the  Th^atre-Frangais  was  the  absolute  an- 
tithesis of  the  original  scenic  surroundings  in  the  theater 
of  Dionysus  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago,  when 
the  masterpiece  of  Sophocles  had  been  performed  in 
the  open-air  orchestra,  with  only  a  hut  of  skins  or  a 
temporary  wooden  building  to  serve  as  a  background 
for  the  bas-reliefs  of  the  action. 

So  elaborate,  complicated,  and  costly  have  stage- 
sets  become  in  the  past  half-century,  that  there  are 
already  signs  of  the  violent  reaction  that  might  be 
expected.  Mr.  Gordon  Craig,  an  artist  of  remarkable 
individuahty,  has  gone  so  far  as  to  propose  what  is 
almost  an  abolition  of  scene-painting.  He  seeks  to 
attain  effects  of  massive  simplicity  by  the  use  of  un- 
adorned hangings  and  of  undecorated  screens,  thus 
substituting  vast  spaces  for  the  reaHstic  details  of  the 

149 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

modem  scene-painter.  No  doubt,  there  are  a  few 
plays  for  which  this  method  of  mounting  would  be  ap- 
propriate enough — M.  Maeterlinck's  *  Intruder/  for  one, 
and  his  'Sightless'  for  another,  plays  which  are  inde- 
pendent of  time  and  space,  and  in  which  the  action 
appears  to  pass  in  some  undiscovered  limbo.  As  yet 
the  advanced  and  iconoclastic  theories  of  Mr.  Craig 
have  made  few  adherents,  the  most  notable  being  the 
German,  "Professor"  Reinhardt,  who  lacks  Mr. 
Craig's  fine  feeling  for  form  and  color,  and  who  is  con- 
tinually tempted  into  rather  ugly  eccentricities  of  de- 
sign, being  apparently  moved  by  the  desire  to  be  differ- 
ent from  his  predecessors  rather  than  by  the  wish  to 
be  superior  to  them. 

VI 

Interesting  as  are  Mr.  Craig's  suggestions,  and  well- 
founded  as  may  be  his  protest  against  the  excessive 
ornamentation  to  which  we  are  too  prone  nowadays, 
there  is  no  reason  to  fear  that  his  principles  will  pre- 
vail. The  art  of  the  scene-painter  is  too  welcome,  it 
is  too  plainly  in  accord  with  the  predilections  of  the 
twentieth  century,  for  it  to  be  annihilated  by  the  fiat 
of  a  daring  and  reckless  innovator.  It  will  be  wise 
if  the  producers  should  harken  to  Mr.  Craig's  warn- 
ings and  curb  their  tendency  to  needless  extravagance; 
but  we  may  rest  assured  that  a  return  to  the  bareness 
of  the  Attic  theater  or  of  the  English  theater  in  the 
time  of  the  Tudors  is  frankly  unthinkable  now  that  the 

150 


The  set  of  'G'dipe-Roi'  (at  the  Theatre  Fran9ais) 


The  set  of  tlie  'Return  of  Peter  Grimm' 
From  tlie  model  in  the  Dramatic  Museum  of  Columbia  University 


EVOLUTION    OF    SCENE-PAINTING 

art  of  scene-painting  has  been  developed  to  its  present 
possibilities.  In  fact,  the  probability  is  rather  that 
the  scene-painters  will  continue  to  enlarge  the  bound- 
aries of  their  territory  and  to  discover  new  means  and 
new  methods  of  deHghting  our  eyes  by  their  evocations 
of  interesting  places. 

Perhaps  they  would  be  more  encouraged  to  go  on 
and  conquer  new  worlds  if  there  was  a  wider  recogni- 
tion of  the  artistic  value  of  their  work.  Altho  De 
Lutherbourg  and  Clarkson  Stanfield  won  honorable 
positions  in  the  history  of  painting  by  their  easel- 
pictures,  the  art  of  scene-painting  does  not  hold  the 
place  in  the  public  esteem  that  many  of  its  practition- 
ers deserve.  Th^ophile  Gautier,  often  negligible  as  a 
critic  of  the  acted  drama,  was  always  worth  listening 
to  when  he  turned  to  pictorial  art;  and  he  was  frequent 
in  praise  of  the  scene-painters  of  his  time  and  of  scene- 
painting  itself  as  a  craft  of  exceeding  difficulty  and  of 
inadequate  appreciation.  Probably  one  reason  why 
the  scene-painter  has  not  received  his  due  meed  of 
praise  is  because  his  work  is  not  preserved.  It  exists 
only  during  the  run  of  the  play  which  it  decorates. 
When  the  piece  disappears  from  the  boards,  the  scenes 
which  adorned  it  vanish  from  sight.  They  linger  only 
in  the  memory  of  those  who  happened  to  see  this  one 
play — ^and  even  then,  in  fact,  only  in  the  memoiy  of 
such  spectators  as  have  trained  themselves  to  pay 
attention  to  stage-pictures.  For  the  scene-painter 
there  is  no  Luxembourg;  still  less  is  there  any  Louvre. 
As  Gautier  sympathetically  declared,  "it  is  sad  to  think 

151 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

that  nothing  survives  of  those  masterpieces  destined  to 
Hve  a  few  evenings  only,  and  disappearing  from  the 
washed  canvas  to  give  place  to  other  marvels,  equally- 
fugitive.  How  much  invention,  talent,  and  genius  may 
be  lost — and  not  always  leaving  even  a  name !" 

It  is  pleasant  to  know  that  at  the  Op^ra  in  Paris  a 
formal  order  of  the  government  has  for  now  a  half- 
century  prescribed  the  preservation  of  the  original 
models — the  Uttle  miniature  sets  which  the  scene- 
painter  submits  for  the  approval  of  the  manager  and 
the  dramatist  before  he  begins  work  upon  the  actual 
scene.  These  models  are  always  upon  the  same  scale, 
and  in  the  gallery  connected  with  the  Hbrary  of  the 
Op^ra  a  dozen  of  these  models  are  set  up  to  be  viewed 
by  visitors.  Of  course  no  tiny  model,  however  cleverly 
fashioned,  can  give  the  full  effect  of  the  scene  which 
has  been  conceived  in  terms  of  a  huge  stage;  and  yet 
the  miniature  reproductions  do  not  betray  the  scene- 
painter  as  much  as  an  engraving  or  a  photograph  often 
betrays  the  painter.  Whatever  its  limitations,  and 
they  are  obvious  enough,  the  collection  of  models  at 
the  Op6ra  is  at  least  an  attempt  to  retard  the  obhvion 
that  Th^ophile  Gautier  deplored,  and  to  provide  for 
the  scene-painter  a  substitute,  however  inadequate, 
for  the  Louvre  and  the  Luxembourg. 

(1912.) 


152 


IX 
THE  BOOK  OF  THE  OPERA 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  OPERA 


A  FEW  years  ago  Punch  had  a  satirical  drawing  rep- 
resenting a  British  matron  conveying  a  bevy  of  youth- 
ful daughters  to  the  French  play  in  London.  To  a 
friend  who  called  her  attention  to  the  rather  risky 
atmosphere  of  the  very  Parisian  comedy  which  they 
were  about  to  behold,  the  worthy  mother  promptly  ex- 
plained that  she  was  not  bringing  her  daughters  to  see 
the  play  itself;  she  was  bringing  them  to  see  only  the 
acting.  Probably  a  great  many  opera-goers  would 
make  a  similar  explanation  if  they  were  asked  whether 
they  were  interested  in  the  book  of  the  opera  or  only 
in  the  music.  They  would  be  likely  to  protest  that 
they  cared  little  or  nothing  for  the  libretto,  and  that 
they  were  attracted  solely  by  the  score.  But,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  opera-goers  who  might  make  this 
reply  would  be  self-deceived.  Whether  they  are  aware 
of  it  or  not,  they  are  unlikely  to  be  attracted  to  any 
opera  unless  it  happens  to  have  an  interesting  story, 
built  up  into  a  coherent  and  captivating  plot.  When 
the  libretto  is  unintelligible  or  uninteresting,  the  most 
delightful  music  fails  to  allure  them  into  the  opera- 
house.  This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  the  'Magic 
Flute/  which  contains  much  of  Mozart's  most  beautiful 

155 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

melodic  invention,  is  so  rarely  heard  in  our  opera- 
houses,  and  why  it  is  so  sparsely  attended  when  it  is 
presented.  The  libretto  of  the  'Magic  Flute'  is  dull 
and  ineffective,  and  even  Mozart's  genius  proved  unable 
to  overcome  this  initial  handicap. 

The  ordinary  opera-goer  is  likely  to  treat  the  libretto 
with  calm  contempt.  He  is  prone  to  assert  that  nobody 
cares  about  the  words,  and  he  does  not  reflect  that  be- 
hind and  beneath  the  words  is  the  supporting  structure 
of  the  story.  After  all,  an  opera  is  a  play,  it  is  a  music- 
drama,  and  the  plot  is  as  important  in  a  play  the  words 
of  which  are  to  be  sung  as  in  a  play  the  words  of  which 
are  to  be  spoken.  True  it  is,  of  course,  that  in  an 
opera  the  words  may  not  be  heard  distinctly,  and  per- 
haps they  need  not  be  seized  with  certainty,  since  the 
emotion  they  set  forth  is  more  amply  conveyed  by 
the  music.  But  the  musician  cannot  express  emotion 
musically,  unless  there  is  emotion  for  him  to  express, 
unless  he  has  characters  immeshed  in  a  series  of  situa- 
tions which  evoke  vivid  and  contrasting  sentiments 
for  him  to  translate  into  music.  As  the  music-drama 
is  a  drama,  it  must  obey  the  laws  of  the  drama;  it 
must  represent  a  conflict  of  contending  desires;  it 
must  be  carried  on  by  characters  firm  of  purpose  and 
resolute  in  achieving  their  several  aims.  These  char- 
acters must  be  sharply  individualized  and  boldly  con- 
trasted; and  the  story  in  which  they  take  part  must 
be  at  once  strong  and  simple,  calling  for  no  elaborate 
explanation  and  moving  forward  steadily  and  irresisti- 
bly.   It  must  have  a  lyric  aspect,  lending  itself  natu- 

156 


THE    BOOK    OF    THE    OPERA 

rally  to  song;  and  it  ought  also  to  afford  opportunity 
for  the  spectacular  effects  appropriate  to  the  large 
stage  of  the  opera-house. 

So  contemptuous  of  the  libretto  is  the  ordinary 
opera-goer  that  he  rarely  inquires  as  to  the  name  of 
the  author  of  the  book,  altho  he  is  generally  familiar 
with  the  name  of  the  composer  of  the  score.  He  may 
or  he  may  not  be  aware  that  Wagner  was  his  own 
Hbrettist,  and  quite  possibly  he  supposes  that  it  is  the 
ordinary  custom  of  the  composers  to  write  the  words 
for  their  own  music.  He  knows  that  'Carmen'  was 
composed  by  Bizet,  and  that  the  'Huguenots'  was  com- 
posed by  Meyerbeer;  but  he  would  be  greatly  puzzled 
if  he  was  asked  to  name  the  Hbrettists  of  these  two 
operas,  the  adroit  playwrights  who  devised  the  skeletons 
of  dramatic  action  which  sustained  the  composers  and 
provided  them  with  ample  opportunities  for  the  exer- 
cise of  their  melodic  gift.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  book 
of  'Carmen'  was  written  in  collaboration  by  two  of  the 
most  distinguished  French  dramatists  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  Meilhac  and  Halevy,  the  authors  of 
'Froufrou'  and  of  the  librettos  of  Offenbach's  'Belle 
Helene,'  'Grand  Duchess  of  Gerolstein,'  and  'Peri- 
chole.'  And  the  book  of  the  'Huguenots'  was  the 
work  of  the  master  stage-craftsman,  Scribe,  the  author 
of  'Adrienne  Lecouvreur'  and  of  the  'Ladies'  Battle,' 
and  of  countless  other  plays  performed  in  every  mod- 
em language,  and  in  all  the  countries  of  the  world. 

Bizet  wrote  other  operas  besides  'Carmen,'  and  if 
these  other  operas  have  vanished  from  the  stage,  the 

157 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

reason  may  be  that  the  librettos  to  which  they  were 
composed  were  not  as  ingenious  and  not  as  interesting 
as  the  book  of  'Carmen.'  One  of  these  forgotten  op- 
eras of  Bizet's  was  a  dramatization  of  the  'Fair  Maid 
of  Perth,'  and  another  was  called  the  'Pearl  Fisher'; 
but  neither  of  these  books  was  devised  by  Meilhac  and 
Hal6vy.  And  Scribe  was  not  only  the  librettist  of  the 
'Huguenots'  and  of  the  'Africaine'  for  Meyerbeer;  he 
also  wrote  the  books  of  'Fra  Diavolo'  and  of  'Crown 
Diamonds'  for  Auber,  the  book  of  the  'Dame  Blanche' 
for  Boieldieu,  and  the  book  of  the  'Juive'  for  Hal^vy. 
Indeed,  it  is  evident  that  Wagner  himself  as  a  librettist 
must  be  considered  as  a  direct  disciple  of  Scribe;  cer- 
tainly his  book  of  the  '  Flying  Dutchman '  has  its  points 
of  resemblance  with  the  books  Scribe  invented  for 
'Robert  the  Devil,'  and  for  the  'Prophet.'  Even  the 
libretto  of  Wagner's  'Master-Singers  of  Nuremberg,' 
altho  it  is  far  richer  in  tone  than  any  of  Scribe's  librettos 
for  Auber,  is  constructed  in  accord  with  principles  al- 
ready applied  by  the  French  playwright.  In  fact,  the 
influence  of  Scribe  is  patent  thruout  the  long  history  of 
opera  in  the  nineteenth  century;  he  was  not  only  the 
most  prolific  of  librettists  himself,  but  the  operatic 
formula  he  devised  was  borrowed  by  the  best  of  the 
librettists  who  followed  him.  Scribe  was  not  the  writer 
of  the  books  of  'Faust,'  or  of  'Rom6o  et  JuHet,'  or  of 
'Aida,'  but  all  these  librettos  were  carefully  built  in 
accord  with  the  principles  that  he  had  practised  for 
half  a  century. 


15S 


THE    BOOK    OF   THE    OPERA 


II 

Probably  the  average  opera-goer  is  contemptuous  of 
the  libretto,  because  he  thinks  it  is  an  easy  task  to  write 
the  mere  words  of  an  opera.  To  him,  no  doubt,  the 
opera  lives  by  its  music,  and  by  its  music  alone.  But 
there  is  really  no  warrant  for  this  uncomplimentary 
attitude.  An  opera  is  a  music-drama,  and  if  it  is  to 
achieve  success,  wide-spread  and  long-lasting,  its  drama 
must  be  as  effective  as  its  music.  Experience  proves 
that,  so  far  from  being  as  easy  as  it  seems,  the  construc- 
tion of  a  satisfactory  libretto  is  really  a  difficult  feat, 
to  be  achieved  only  by  an  expert  in  stage-craft.  It  is 
no  task  to  be  confided  to  an  amateur  play-maker,  to 
a  mere  lyrist,  ignorant  of  the  art  of  the  theater.  First 
of  all,  a  satisfactory  book  must  contain  the  skeleton  of 
a  good  play;  and,  second,  this  must  be  the  special  kind 
of  play  which  will  not  only  inspire  the  musician,  but 
afford  him  a  succession  of  special  opportunities  for  the 
exercise  of  his  own  art.  The  book  of  an  opera  must 
be  a  good  play;  and  more  than  once  have  we  seen  a 
libretto  deprived  of  its  music  and  written  out  again 
in  prose  for  production  in  non-musical  theaters. 
'Carmen'  is  one  example  of  this  transformation.  The 
late  Sir  Henry  Irving  was  so  taken  with  Wagner's 
'Flying  Dutchman'  that  he  had  it  made  over  into  a 
play  for  his  own  acting — 'Vanderdecken.' 

The  book  of  an  opera  must  be  a  good  play,  and  there- 
fore not  a  few  successful  operas  have  been  composed 

159 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

on  plots  which  had  already  won  approval  as  plays  on 
the  stage.  Indeed,  many  modern  composers  are  so 
convinced  of  the  necessity  that  librettos  shall  be  attrac- 
tive in  themselves  that  they  are  continually  borrowing 
popular  plays  to  deck  with  melody.  'Salom6'  and 
*Pell6as  et  M^lisande/  'Madam  Butterfly'  and  'Ca- 
valleria  Rusticana/  the  'Boheme'  and  the  'Tosca' 
were  all  successful  without  music  before  they  were  set 
to  music  to  win  a  second  success.  The  book  of  Verdi's 
^Rigoletto'  is  based  on  Victor  Hugo's  drama,  'Le  Roi 
s'Amuse';  and  oddly  enough  it  was  the  operatic  li- 
bretto, rather  than  the  original  poetic  drama,  which 
suggested  the  English  play  on  the  same  theme,  Tom 
Taylor's  blank-verse  drama,  the  'Fool's  Revenge.' 
Another  of  Verdi's  librettos  was  borrowed  from  Hugo's 
'Hermani',  while  his  'Traviata,'  as  we  all  know,  is 
taken  from  the  play  of  the  yoimger  Dumas,  long  pop- 
ular in  America  as  'Camille.'  Two  of  Verdi's  latest 
operas  had  Shaksperian  themes,  'Otello'  and  'Falstaff.' 
It  is  instructive  to  note,  so  an  American  musical 
critic  once  asserted,  that  of  all  Gounod's  dozen  operas, 
"the  only  two  which  have  survived  are  the  two  which 
are  derived  from  Goethe's  'Faust'  and  from  Shak- 
spere's  'Romeo  and  Juliet'";  and  he  added  a  reminder 
that  in  these  operas  the  music  owes  its  success  "not 
only  to  the  aid  derived  from  its  associations  with  a 
favorite  play,  but  also  in  part  to  the  fact  that  .the 
composer's  creative  imagination  was  fertilized  by  the 
splendid  opportunities  for  dramatic  composition  of- 
fered by  these  plays.    Gounod  was  moved  by  the  joys 

160 


THE    BOOK    OF   THE    OPERA 

and  woes  of  Margaret  and  of  Juliet,  and  it  is  only  un- 
der the  influence  of  deep  feeling  that  such  masterworks 
can  be  created."  When  Gounod  set  to  music  a  poetic 
play  by  Goethe,  and  when  Verdi  set  to  music  a  group 
of  characters  created  by  Shakspere,  the  composers 
might  well  be  inspired  by  the  poets;  and  they  were 
thus  aided  to  attain  the  utmost  of  which  they  are  capa- 
ble as  musicians. 

But  it  may  be  doubted  whether  any  musician  could 
find  any  really  helpful  inspiration  in  dramas  of  vulgar 
violence,  such  as  the  ^Tosca'  of  Sardou,  and  the 
'  Salom^ '  of  Oscar  Wilde ;  and  it  is  extremely  improbable 
that  the  operas  composed  to  such  unworthy  themes 
will  be  able  to  achieve  any  durable  popularity.  In 
plots  of  so  coarse  a  character  there  is  neither  beauty 
nor  poetry,  and  the  vogue  of  music-dramas  having 
subjects  so  debased  is  likely  to  be  fleeting.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  was  both  poetry  and  beauty  in  the 
original  plays  of  'Madam  Butterfly'  and  'Cavalleria 
Rusticana,'  and  we  need  not  be  surprised  if  the  operas 
composed  on  these  themes  prove  to  have  a  long  life  in 
the  musical  theaters.  We  may  even  go  further  and 
suggest  that  there  was  a  haunting  and  ethereal  grace 
about  Maeterlinck's  'Pell^as  et  M^Hsande'  which 
seemed  almost  to  demand  translation  into  the  sister 
art  of  music. 

The  two  most  effective  French  comedies  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  the  'Barber  of  Seville'  and  the  'Mar- 
riage of  Figaro,'  supplied  librettos,  one  for  Rossini  and 
the  other  for  Mozart.    We  may  be  sure  that  sooner 

161 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

or  later  some  other  composer,  Italian  or  American  or 
German,  will  be  tempted  to  undertake  an  opera  based 
on  Fulda's  '  Two  Sisters,'  in  which  there  could  not  help 
being  a  very  effective  part  for  the  prima  donna.  And 
sooner  or  later  again  some  musician  with  an  apprecia- 
tion of  humor  and  sentiment  will  be  moved  to  take  for 
his  libretto  the  comedy  of '  Masks  and  Faces,'  by  Charles 
Reade  and  Tom  Taylor,  generally  known  by  the  name 
of  its  fascinating  heroine,  Peg  Woffington.  No  doubt 
there  are  not  a  few  other  modern  plays  in  which  com- 
posers will  discover  musical  possibilities. 

in 

The  key  to  an  understanding  of  the  importance  of 
the  libretto  lies  in  the  term  Wagner  used  to  describe 
the  art-work  of  the  future;  he  called  this  a  "music- 
drama."  The  exclusive  lover  of  music  is  tempted  to 
look  down  on  opera  because  its  music  is  contaminated 
with  drama;  and  for  a  similar  reason,  the  exclusive 
lover  of  the  drama  is  not  attracted  to  opera  because 
the  drama  is  there  more  or  less  sacrificed  to  the  music. 
But  there  are  many  opera-goers  who  best  relish  music 
and  the  drama  when  they  are  presented  in  conjunction. 
In  a  music-drama  of  the  highest  type,  in  Wagner's 
'Tannhaiiser,'  for  example,  the  music  and  the  drama 
are  Siamese  twins;  they  were  brought  forth  at  a  single 
birth.  Each  helps  the  other,  and  neither  calls  upon 
the  other  for  any  undue  sacrifice.  They  can  be  en- 
joyed together  better  than  they  can  be  enjoyed  apart, 

162 


THE    BOOK    OF   THE    OPERA 

since  each  depends  upon  the  other;  and  united  they 
stand  or  fall. 

Mr.  H.  T.  Finck  was  not  overstating  the  case  when 
he  insisted  that  the  ideal  opera  is  one  in  which  the  book 
and  the  score  are  each  of  them  of  absorbing  interest, 
"and  yet  make  a  doubly  deep  impression  when  heard 
together."  The  stories  of '  Faust '  and  of '  Carmen '  and 
of  'Lohengrin'  are  delightful  in  themselves,  merely 
to  read;  and  a  musical  expert  can  find  pleasure  in 
playing  the  music  from  them  on  the  piano.  "Yet 
how  much  more  effective  they  are  when  we  hear  and 
see  music  and  play  together  on  the  stage."  And  then 
the  same  writer  goes  on  to  point  out  that  the  best 
"Hbretto  is  one  which  tells  its  story  to  the  eye,"  as  in 
the  case  of  '  Carmen,'  for  example.  "  No  one  with  eyes 
to  see  can  fail,  for  instance,  to  follow  the  career  of 
'Carmen,'  from  her  flirtation  with  the  yoimg  officer 
to  the  scene  before  the  bullring  where  he  stabs  her." 

It  was  an  acute  French  dramatic  critic  who  once 
asserted  that  "the  skeleton  of  every  good  play  is  a 
pantomime,"  and  the  assertion  is  more  emphatically 
true  when  applied  to  the  skeleton  of  a  libretto.  In- 
deed, as  the  words  are  rarely  heard  distinctly,  and  as 
they  are  often  in  a  foreign  language,  there  is  double 
need  of  a  story  so  clear  and  so  straightforward  that  it 
can  be  caught  by  the  eye  alone  from  the  actions  and 
gestures  and  facial  expressions  of  the  performers  with- 
out the  aid  of  the  actual  words.  But  the  inventing 
and  the  constructing  of  a  plot  of  this  seemingly  simple 
effectiveness  is  a  task  of  extraordinary  difficulty — if 

163 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

we  may  judge  by  the  infrequency  of  its  achievement. 
And  undoubtedly  it  is  this  difficulty  which  has  led  so 
many  musicians  to  compose  their  scores  to  books  only 
slightly  altered  from  plays  which  had  already  an  at- 
tested popularity  in  the  theater.  By  so  doing  it  has 
seemed  to  them  that  they  were  minimizing  the  risk  of 
finding  their  music  handicapped  by  an  ineffective  story. 
The  danger  in  this  case  lies  in  the  temptation  to  set 
to  music  any  play  which  may  chance  to  be  successful 
without  considering  sufficiently  whether  it  is  really 
worthy  of  the  composer's  labor. 

There  is  another  disadvantage  also  in  this  snatching  at 
successful  plays  to  serve  as  opera-librettos.  Most  suc- 
cessful plays  nowadays  deal  with  modern  life,  and  they 
may  owe  much  of  their  success  to  the  skill  with  which 
the  dramatist  has  been  able  to  seize  the  external  aspects 
of  reality.  Now,  it  is  an  interesting  question  whether 
a  reaHstic  piece  of  this  sort  can  ever  supply  an  entirely 
satisfactory  book  for  an  opera,  since  music  is  emotional 
and  idealizing.  To  many  persons  the  opera  seems 
singularly  unreal,  strangely  remote  from  actual  life. 
Such  persons  are  shocked  that  Tristan,  for  instance, 
should  sing  for  half  an  hour  when  he  is  dying  from  physi- 
cal weakness.  Tolstoy  sided  with  those  who  take  this 
attitude,  and  he  had  no  difficulty  in  showing  up  the 
absurd  unreality  of  an  operatic  performance,  if  one 
insists  upon  applying  to  it  the  standard  of  our  ordinary 
existence,  since  we  do  not  burst  into  song  ordinarily 
to  express  our  every-day  desires.  Of  course,  there 
would  be  no  great  difficulty  in  showing  up  the  absurd 

164 


THE    BOOK    OF   THE    OPERA 

unreality  of  every  other  art,  if  the  same  standard  is 
insisted  upon.  No  art  can  justify  itself  for  a  moment 
unless  we  are  willing  to  admit  the  essential  conventions 
which  alone  permit  it  to  exist. 

Tolstoy  might  as  well  have  pointed  out  that  sculp- 
ture is  ridiculous,  since  no  human  being  is  ever  all  of 
one  color,  body  and  clothes,  as  a  statue  must  be, 
whether  it  is  made  of  marble  or  of  bronze.  He  could 
have  declared  that  painting  is  equally  untrue  to  the 
mere  facts  of  life,  since  it  represents  nature  absolutely 
without  motion,  as  when  it  depicts  a  field  of  waving 
com  which  does  not  really  wave  but  stands  fixed  for- 
ever. If  Tolstoy  or  any  one  else  refuses  to  accept  the 
conventions  of  any  art,  there  is  no  possible  reply,  ex- 
cept to  make  it  clear  to  him  that  he  is  thereby  de- 
priving himself  of  the  delight  which  that  art  can  give. 
A  departure  from  the  mere  fact  underHes  every  art; 
and  it  is  only  because  of  that  departure  that  the  art 
exists.  By  convention,  that  is  to  say,  by  tacit  agree- 
ment between  the  artist  and  the  public,  the  artist  is 
allowed  to  deny  certain  of  the  facts  of  life  in  order  to 
provide  the  public  with  the  specific  pleasure  which 
only  his  art  can  afford. 

In  the  Shaksperian  drama  the  underlying  conven- 
tion is  that  the  persons  of  the  play  belong  to  a  race 
of  people  who  always  express  themselves  poetically  in 
English  blank  verse.  In  opera  this  necessary  agreement 
requires  us  to  concede  the  existence  of  men  and  women 
to  whom  song  is  the  natural  means  of  communicating 
all  their  sentiments  and  all  their  thoughts.    If  we  are 

165 


A   BOOK   ABOUT   THE   THEATER 

willing  to  accept  this  implied  contract,  then  there  is  no 
absurdity  in  Tristan's  singing  with  his  dying  breath, 
since  he  belongs  to  a  race  of  creatures  who  have  no 
other  method  of  speech.  If  we  are  unwilling  to  be 
parties  to  this  agreement,  if  we  deny  the  existence  of 
any  such  creatures,  then  there  is  nothing  for  us  to  do 
but  to  keep  out  of  the  opera-house.  It  was  this  con- 
vention which  Tolstoy  rejected,  and  by  this  rejection 
he  refused  the  enjoyment  which  the  opera  can  give  to 
those  who  are  satisfied  to  accept  its  conditions. 

IV 

But  there  is  no  denying  that  the  imperative  operatic 
convention  requires  us  to  admit  a  very  violent  depar- 
ture from  the  facts  of  life  as  we  all  know  them.  We 
are  now  so  accustomed  to  blank  verse  in  Shakspere's 
plays,  tragic  and  comic,  that  we  accept  it  almost 
without  noticing  it.  By  long  habit,  we  have  come  to 
consider  blank  verse  as  "natural"  in  a  poetic  play, 
especially  when  that  play  sets  before  us  heroic  figures 
of  the  remote  past.  And  here  is  the  danger  in  the 
operas  which  have  been  composed  on  books  made  out 
of  modem  popular  pieces,  more  or  less  realistic  in  their 
atmosphere.  The  "naturahiess"  of  the  men  and 
women  in  these  plays  of  to-day  tends  to  draw  atten- 
tion to  the  "unnaturalness"  of  their  customary  use  of 
song  to  express  their  emotions. 

This  danger  Wagner  skilfully  avoided  in  his  later 
music-dramas  derived  from  the  Nibelungen  myth. 

166 


THE    BOOK    OF   THE    OPERA 

He  set  before  us  shadowy  creatures  involved  in  strange 
intrigues  far  back  in  the  legendary  past  and  wholly 
devoid  of  any  modem  or  realistic  suggestion.  As  Tris- 
tan and  Siegfried  and  Bnmhild  are  all  idealized  per- 
sons, taking  part  in  poetic  fictions,  we  are  willing  enough 
to  accept  their  exclusive  use  of  song;  and  we  recognize 
at  once  the  artistic  inconsistency  of  Tolstoy's  protest. 
To  beings  so  remote  from  our  daily  life,  from  our  or- 
dinary experience,  the  standard  of  fact  cannot  fairly 
be  applied.  We  acknowledge  the  full  right  of  such 
creatures  to  dwell  eternally  in  the  land  of  song  alone. 
But  we  are  perhaps  a  little  less  willing  to  make  this 
acknowledgment  when  we  find  the  composer  asking 
us  to  believe  that  men  and  women  of  oiu-  own  time  and 
of  om*  own  country,  the  characters  of  the  '  Girl  of  the 
Golden  West,'  for  example,  or  even  some  of  those  of 
'Madam  Butterfly,'  should  eschew  the  plain  prose  of 
ordinary  speech  and  insist  on  discussing  their  love- 
affairs  in  the  obviously  "unnatural"  medium  of  song. 
That  is  to  say,  there  is  a  striking  incongruity  between 
musical  expression  and  the  realistic  characters  of  most 
modem  plays.  We  enjoy  the  opera  partly  because  it 
is  not  "natural,"  not  "real,"  in  the  ordinary  meaning 
of  these  words;  and  if  the  plot  and  the  people  are 
aggressively  modem  and  matter-of-fact,  our  attention 
is  necessarily  called  to  the  "imnaturalness"  of  their 
incessant  vocalization.  A  certain  remoteness  from  real 
life,  even  a  certain  vaporous  intangibihty  as  to  time 
and  place,  seem  to  be  a  helpful  element  in  our  enjoy- 
ment of  a  music-drama. 

167 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

Perhaps  it  is  due  to  this  remoteness,  to  this  unreality, 
that  the  opera-goer  is  willing  enough  to  have  a  story 
end  unhappily,  altho  the  playgoer  is  now  likely  to  be 
painfully  affected  by  a  tragic  ending.  Whatever  the 
reason,  it  is  a  fact  that  most  of  our  popular  plays  end 
merrily  in  a  church,  while  most  of  our  popular  operas 
end  sadly  in  a  churchyard.  The  calculation  has  been 
made  that  out  of  twoscore  operas  sung  in  New  York 
at  the  two  opera-houses  a  season  or  so  ago,  only  half 
a  dozen  ended  happily;  the  large  majority  of  them  cul- 
minated in  the  death  of  the  hero  or  of  the  heroine  or 
of  both  together.  Music  is  a  sister  of  poetry,  and  we 
need  not  wonder  that  the  musicians  are  likely  to  prefer 
the  opera-book  which  has  a  tragic  catastrophe. 

(1910.) 


168 


X 

THE  POETRY  OF  THE  DANCE 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  DANCE 


The  Greek  of  old  was  wise  in  his  generation  and  poetic 
as  was  his  habit,  when  he  imagined  nine  muses  and 
when  he  feigned  that  each  of  them  was  to  watch  over 
a  separate  art,  and  to  inspire  those  who  might  strive 
to  excel  in  this.  It  is  true  that  nowadays  we  cannot 
help  feeling  that  the  sister-muses  of  Tragedy  and  of 
Comedy  have  been  a  Httle  dereUct  to  their  duty,  if 
they  are  really  responsible  for  all  the  plays  of  our  time, 
not  a  few  of  which  seem  to  be  sadly  lacking  in  inspira- 
tion. But  of  late  another  of  the  sacred  nine  appears 
,  to  have  aroused  herself  out  of  her  lethargy  and  to  have 
awakened  to  a  fuller  reaHzation  of  her  opportunity. 
At  least,  there  are  many  evidences  now  visible  in  the 
United  States  that  Terpsichore  has  been  attending 
strictly  to  business,  and  sending  out  travelers  with 
many  diverse  specimens  of  her  wares.  Indeed,  there 
has  probably  never  been  a  time  when  so  many  different 
varieties  of  the  dance  have  been  on  exhibition  before 
the  American  people.  It  was  once  remarked  by  a 
shrewd  observer  that  there  were  only  three  kinds  of 
dancing,  the  graceful,  the  ungraceful,  and  the  dis- 
graceful. And  in  the  United  States  we  have  had  pre- 
sented to  us  in  the  past  few  years  specimens  of  all  three 
kinds. 

171 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

In  the  middle  of  September,  1910,  the  Playgromid 
Association  of  America  held  an  outdoor  session  in 
Van  Cortlandt  Park,  in  New  York,  and  three  hundred 
persons,  mostly  children,  took  part  in  the  exercises. 
The  most  interesting  feature  of  the  program  was  a 
series  of  national  folk-dances  executed  by  boys  and 
girls  from  the  pubhc  schools.  New  York  is  the  huge 
melting-pot  where  all  nationalities  of  Europe  meet  to 
be  fused  into  Americans;  and  these  children  were, 
most  of  them,  executing  the  dances  of  the  countries 
their  parents  had  come  from — dances  for  which  they 
had,  therefore,  a  traditional  and  hereditary  predilec- 
tion. German  girls  in  the  costumes  of  the  Rhine,  gave 
a  peasant  dance  to  the  simple  tune  of  'Ach,  du  lieber 
Augustin';  and  colored  children,  in  perfect  rhj^hm, 
moved  thru  a  reel  to  the  music  of  the  'Suwanee  River.* 
The  wild  Hungarian  czardas  was  carried  off  with  a 
splendid  swing  by  men  and  women  bom  on  the  banks 
of  the  Danube;  and  an  Irish  quartet  displayed  their 
agihty  and  their  precision  of  time-keeping  in  a  four- 
handed  country-dance.  And  at  the  end,  all  the  par- 
ticipants in  the  several  national  dances  took  part  in  a 
general  harvest-dance.  This  was  an  effective  spec- 
tacle, possible  only  here  in  America,  where  representa- 
tives of  many  peoples  come  to  mingle,  even  tho  each 
of  them  retains  a  sentiment  of  loyalty  to  the  old  home 
it  has  left  forever. 

Here  in  the  open  air,  in  a  public  park,  at  this  meeting 
of  the  Playground  Association,  there  was  this  joyous 
and  wholesome  revival  of  the  folk-dances  of  a  dozen 

172 


THE    POETRY    OF   THE    DANCE 

(Merent  races;  and  at  the  same  time,  in  one  or  another 
of  half  a  score  of  the  theaters  of  the  great  city,  ill- 
trained  and  half-clothed  women  were  vainly  capering 
about  the  stage  in  doubtful  efforts  to  suggest  the  Orien- 
tal contortions  of  Salom^.  These  were,  most  of  them, 
consciously  and  deliberately  inartistic,  appealing  di- 
rectly to  the  baser  instincts  and  to  the  lower  curiosi- 
ties of  man.  Nothing  could  have  been  in  sharper  con- 
trast with  the  folk-dances  of  the  foreign-bom  children, 
which  were  gay  and  healthy  and  spontaneous.  The 
exercises  in  the  park  were  examples  of  the  kind  of 
dancing  which  cannot  help  being  graceful,  while  most 
of  the  performances  in  the  theaters  were  specimens  of 
the  kind  of  dancing  which  can  fairly  be  described  as 
ungraceful,  even  if  they  cannot  all  of  them  be  dis- 
missed as  disgraceful.  While  the  folk-dances  of  the 
children  would  fill  the  heart  with  a  pure  deHght,  the 
sorry  spectacle  presented  in  some  of  the  theaters  was 
not  to  be  witnessed  without  a  certain  loss  of  seK-respect; 
it  recalled  the  gross  pantomimes  of  the  later  Roman 
theater,  righteously  denounced  by  the  Fathers  of  the 
Church. 

Yet  it  is  only  just  to  record  that  in  other  theaters 
there  were  then  other  spectacles  to  make  amends  for 
these  sorry  exhibitions.  There  were  several  interest- 
ing attempts  to  recall  the  severe  beauty  of  Greek  danc- 
ing. Lithe  figures  with  free  and  floating  draperies 
sought  to  recapture  the  irreclaimable  charm  that  fives 
for  us  in  the  lovely  Tanagra  figurines,  or  that  flits  elu- 
sively  around  the  sides  of  Attic  vases.    Ambitious  ef- 

173 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

forts  were  made  by  one  dancer  and  by  another  to  trans- 
late into  step  and  posture  and  gesture  the  intangible 
poetry  of  Shelley  and  the  haunting  music  of  Mendels- 
sohn. Unfortunately,  the  result  was  rarely  commen- 
surate with  the  effort;  and,  in  fact,  a  complete  success 
was  not  possible.  The  muse  of  dancing  has  no  right 
to  endeavor  to  annex  the  territory  of  her  sisters,  who 
are  charged  with  the  care  of  poetry  and  music.  The 
several  arts  are  strongest  when  each  remains  strictly 
within  its  own  limitations.  For  example,  program- 
music  is  not  yet  assured  of  its  welcome,  and  program- 
dancing  is  far  more  difficult  to  follow  with  complete 
comprehension. 

And  there  was  a  further  defect  in  these  efforts  to  re- 
vive the  classic  dances  and  to  devise  more  modem 
interpretations  of  poetry  and  music.  Success,  if  pos- 
sible at  aU,  would  be  possible  only  to  a  highly  trained 
performer,  mistress  of  every  device  of  the  terpsi- 
chorean  art  and  elaborately  schooled  in  pantomimic 
expression.  Now,  it  is  not  imfair  to  say  that  no  one 
of  the  performers  of  these  so-called  classic  dances  had 
undergone  this  severe  schooling.  No  one  of  them  had 
the  lightness,  the  ease,  the  perfect  mastery  of  method, 
the  floating  grace  of  the  true  dancer,  who  has  been 
taught  from  childhood,  until  all  the  tricks  of  the  craft 
are  second  nature.  Without  this  arduous  training  any 
one  who  attempts  an  ambitious  display  can  scarcely 
fail  to  reveal  instantly  the  lamentable  fact  that  she  is 
not  mistress  of  the  technic  of  the  art  she  has  undertaken 
to  practise.    She  does  not  know  how  to  get  her  effects; 

174 


THE    POETRY    OF   THE    DANCE 

she  does  not  even  know  what  effects  are  possible. 
She  is  ahnost  certain  to  appear  amateurish,  and  she 
is  likely  to  seem  awkward  also,  not  to  say  imgainly. 
As  Pope  put  it  tersely:  "Those  move  easiest  who  have 
learned  to  dance." 

These  well-meant  attempts  to  link  dancing  with 
poetry  and  music  could  be  entirely  satisfactory  only 
to  those  who  have  given  little  consideration  to  dancing 
as  an  art,  or  who  have  small  opportunity  to  see  any 
really  beautiful  dancing.  There  is  no  wonder  that 
any  effort  to  spirituaHze  dancing,  to  give  it  a  soul,  to 
elevate  it  to  the  lofty  level  of  the  lyric,  should  be  wel- 
comed by  those  who  have  been  disgusted  by  the  ugly 
and  vulgar  high-kicking  of  the  so-called  pony  ballets. 
The  acrobatic  contortions  of  these  athletic  performers 
were  wholly  without  charm,  as  unalluring  as  they  were 
violent.  And  equally  unacceptable  are  the  frequent 
exhibitions  of  toe-dancing,  sheer  gymnastic  feats,  diffi- 
cult, indeed,  but  essentially  uninteresting.  Of  a  truth, 
these  pony  ballets  on  the  one  hand,  and  these  toe- 
dancers  on  the  other,  are  exponents  of  eccentricity. 
What  they  accomplish  lies  outside  the  true  art  of  danc- 
ing. It  is  not  inspired  by  Terpsichore,  and  the  sad- 
dened muse  must  veil  her  face  when  she  is  forced  to 
behold  these  crude  exhibitions  of  misplaced  energy. 


175 


A  BOOK  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 


II 

The  true  art  of  dancing  is  entirely  free  from  all  ap- 
parent effort.  No  matter  how  difficult  may  be  the 
feat  that  is  accomplished,  it  must  seem  easy.  Every 
gesture  must  be  expressive,  every  movement  must  be 
beautiful,  every  step  must  have  ease  and  lightness  and 
grace.  Forty  years  ago  and  more,  the  'Black  Crook' 
brought  to  America  three  or  four  dancers  trained  in  the 
best  schools  of  Europe — Bonfanti  and  Betty  Rigl, 
Rita  SangalH  and  Morlacchi.  One  of  this  quartet, 
Rita  Sangalli,  was  afterward  the  chief  dancer  at  the 
Paris  Op4ra,  where  she  was  followed  in  time  by  Rosita 
Mauri,  a  dancer  who  added  beauty  of  face  and  of  form 
to  a  masterly  accomplishment.  They  were  all  gifted 
pantomimists;  they  had  all  of  them  the  perfection  of 
technic;  they  were  all  of  them  capable  of  the  most 
varied  difficulties  of  the  art;  and  they  all  of  them  van- 
quished these  difficulties  with  unobtrusive  ease.  They 
had  attained  to  that  perfection  of  art,  when  the  art 
itself  is  hidden,  and  when  only  the  consummate  result 
is  visible.  Each  of  them  had  absolute  certainty  of 
execution,  and  each  of  them  could  float  across  the 
stage  the  embodiment  of  grace,  exquisite  in  its  ethe- 
real delicacy. 

For  those  whose  memories  cannot  recall  the  haunting 
remembrance  of  the  days  that  are  gone  there  is  abun- 
dant compensation  in  the  opportunity  which  has  been 
afforded  of  late  to  behold  the  dancing  of  Mile.  Gen^e 

176 


THE    POETRY    OF   THE    DANCE 

and  of  Mile.  Pavlova.  They  are,  at  least,  the  equal 
of  any  of  their  predecessors,  and  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  Taghoni  or  Fanny  Elssler  surpassed  them  in 
mastery.  They  are  the  perfection  of  effortless  ease; 
altho  they  suggest  only  the  lightness  of  the  butterfly, 
they  have  the  steel  strength  of  the  gymnast.  Behind 
their  marvelous  and  bewildering  accomplishment  there 
is  a  native  gift,  rich  and  full;  and  there  is  also  the 
utmost  rigor  and  perseverance  in  training.  What  they 
are  able  to  do  with  seeming  spontaneity  and  with  ap- 
parent freedom  is  the  result  of  indefatigable  industry 
and  of  merciless  labor. 

But  tho  this  schooling  sustains  them,  it  is  never 
paraded — indeed,  it  is  scarcely  perceived.  There  is 
not  the  faintest  suggestion  of  hard  work  about  their 
performances;  there  is  nothing  that  hints  at  effort; 
their  art  is  able  to  conceal  itself  absolutely,  and  to 
dehght  us  only  with  the  perfect  result  of  their  long 
apprenticeship.  Capable  of  the  most  obstinate  feats  of 
strength  and  of  agility,  Mile.  Gen^e  and  Mile.  Pavlova 
never  "show  off";  they  are  never  guilty  of  parading  a 
difficulty  for  its  own  sake,  and  their  conquest  of  tech- 
nical obstacles  serves  only  to  support  and  intensify 
the  continuous  suggestion  of  aerial  elevation  and  of 
ineffable  lightness.  It  is  to  be  noted,  also,  that  as  they 
scorn  the  task  of  the  mere  gymnast,  they  do  not  wear 
the  scant  costume  of  the  acrobat;  they  are  enveloped 
in  ample  draperies,  which  fall  into  lines  of  beauty  with 
every  movement. 

Nothing  more  exquisite  than  their  dancing  has  ever 

177 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

been  seen  on  the  American  stage.  Theirs  is  the  danc- 
ing which  is  graceful — ^which,  indeed,  is  grace  itself. 
Here  is  the  art  at  its  utmost  possibility,  purged  of  all 
its  dross.  When  they  are  floating  effortless  thru  space 
we  cannot  help  recalling  the  possibly  apocryphal  anec- 
dote which  records  the  visit  of  Emerson  and  Margaret 
Fuller  to  the  theater  to  see  Fanny  Elssler.  They  gazed 
with  increasing  delight,  until  at  last  Margaret  Fuller 
could  not  contain  her  enthusiasm.  She  turned  and 
said:  "Ralph,  this  is  poetry !"  To  which  the  philoso- 
pher is  said  to  have  responded:  "Margaret,  this  is 
reHgion ! " 

Perfection  is  always  rare,  and  there  is  now  only  one 
Mile.  Genie,  and  only  one  Mile.  Pavlova,  as  there  was 
only  one  Rosita  Mauri  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago. 
It  is  a  pity  that  the  Danish  dancer  has  had  to  appear 
here  in  an  ordinary  musical  show  and  not  in  a  frame- 
work more  worthy  of  her  and  of  her  art,  and  better 
fitted  to  display  it.  She  has  revealed  herself  only  in 
two  or  three  entries  de  ballet,  as  the  French  term  them 
— ^incidental  dances;  and  she  has  not  yet  been  seen  here 
in  a  ballet  d^ action,  a  complete  story  told  in  pantomime. 
It  was  the  poet,  Francois  Copple,  who  devised  the  plot 
of  the  'Korrigane'  for  Rosita  Mauri;  and  he  had  had 
Thiophile  Gautier  as  a  predecessor  in  the  preparation 
of  a  ballet-libretto.  All  those  who  are  interested  in 
every  manifestation  of  the  art  of  the  drama,  must  find 
pleasure  in  the  ballet  d'action,  with  its  adroit  com- 
mingling of  dance  and  pantomime;  it  gives  a  delight 
possible  to  no  other  form  of  the  drama;  and  at  its 

178 


THE    POETRY    OF   THE    DANCE 

best  it  is  more  closely  akin  to  pure  poetry.  Being  her 
own  manager,  Mile.  Pavlova  has  been  seen  in  a  series 
of  ballets  more  appropriate  to  her  extraordinary  gifts 
than  those  in  which  Mile.  Gen^e  has  been  permitted  to 
appear. 

m 

There  was  one  scene  of  the  '  Source/  a  ballet  popular 
at  the  Op^ra  in  Paris  during  the  exhibition  of  1867, 
which  must  linger  in  the  memory  of  all  who  had  the 
good  fortune  to  behold  it — a  scene  so  beautiful  that  it 
was  borrowed  for  the  'White  Fawn,^  which  was  the 
successor  of  the  'Black  Crook*  here  iu  the  United 
States.  It  represented  a  silvery  glade  in  the  lone  for- 
est, with  a  mysterious  lake,  on  the  surface  of  which 
the  spirits  of  the  springtime  came  forth  to  disport 
themselves.  It  was  a  vision  of  airy  grace  and  of  haunt- 
ing legend;  and  it  is  only  one  example  of  the  poetic 
possibiKties  of  the  contribution  of  dance  and  panto- 
mime in  a  coherent  story.  It  may  be  well  to  recall 
the  fact  that  the  plots  of  these  ballets  d^ action  are  often 
strong  enough  to  enable  them  to  serve  as  the  basis  of 
a  Ubretto  for  an  opera.  It  was  a  baUet  of  Scribe's,  for 
example,  which  was  taken  for  the  book  of  the  'Som- 
nambula*;  and  the  book  of  the  favorite  opera  'Mar- 
tha' began  its  existence  as  a  libretto  for  a  ballet. 

While  the  hallet  d^adion  affords  the  fullest  oppor- 
tunity for  the  perfect  art  of  dancers  Hke  Rosita  Mauri 
and  Adeline  Gen4e  and  Anna  Pavlova,  there  are  other 
forms  npt  to  be  despised.    Twenty-five  years  ago  the 

179 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

Italian  Marenco  brought  out  his  stupendous  'Excel- 
sior/ which  was  taken  from  Italy  to  Paris,  then  to 
New  York,  and  finally  to  London.  'Excelsior'  was  an 
allegorical  ballet;  it  represented  the  conflict  of  light 
and  darkness,  of  progress  and  superstition,  of  invention 
and  reaction.  It  filled  a  whole  evening  with  spectacle 
and  glitter  and  movement.  It  lacked  the  poetic  sim- 
plicity of  the  'Source'  and  of  the  'Korrigane';  but  it 
had  other  qualities  of  its  own.  What  set  it  apart  from 
all  the  ballets  that  had  gone  before  was  the  subordina- 
tion of  the  individual  terpsichorean  artist  to  the  main 
body.  Marenco  employed  the  best  dancers  to  be  found 
in  Italy,  no  doubt,  but  he  did  not  rely  on  them  so 
much  as  on  the  intricate  and  ingenious  handling  of 
the  crowds  of  lesser  dancers,  by  whom  they  were  sur- 
rounded. 

The  novelty  of  'Excelsior'  and  of  the  two  or  three 
gigantic  Italian  spectacles  which  were  patterned  upon 
it — 'Messalina'  and  'Sieba' — ^lay  in  the  maneuvering 
of  the  masses,  in  the  extraordinary  skill  with  which 
squadrons  of  figures  were  made  to  charge  across  the 
stage  and  combine  and  melt  into  one  another  most 
unexpectedly  and  most  delightfully.  The  whole  stage 
was  a  blaze  of  artfully  contrasted  colors,  and  it  was 
filled  with  a  riot  of  motion  and  of  glitter.  And  Marenco 
made  use  of  male  dancers  far  more  abundantly  than 
any  of  his  predecessors,  utilizing  them  to  wear  the 
more  somber  colors,  to  suggest  a  sterner  vigor,  and  to 
emphasize  a  bolder  contrast.  He  was  responsible  also 
for  another  novelty,  often  employed  by  others  since; 

180 


THE    POETRY    OF   THE    DANCE 

he  increased  the  height  of  his  swerving  lines  of  dancers, 
now  and  again;  by  mounting  some  of  the  figures  on 
stands,  and  by  putting  revolving  globes  and  iridescent 
banners  into  the  hands  of  the  men  in  the  background. 
It  is  the  method  of  Marenco  in  'Excelsior'  which  has 
been  followed  in  the  often  pleasing  ballets  of  the  Hip- 
podrome in  New  York.  Really  good  soloists  are  now 
very  scarce,  even  in  Milan  and  in  Vienna,  long  the 
nurseries  of  the  baUet;  and  there  seem  to  be  none  too 
many  even  in  Petrograd,  which  has  preserved  and  im- 
proved upon  the  traditions  of  Paris  and  Milan.  And 
in  the  absence  of  accomplished  soloists,  the  deviser  of 
the  ballets  at  the  Hippodrome  has  been  compelled  to 
get  along  without  them  as  best  he  could.  He  has  been 
forced  to  rely  on  the  maneuvering  of  masses  of  girls, 
possessed  of  only  a  rudimentary  instruction  in  the  ele- 
ments of  the  terpsichorean  art.  In  other  words,  he 
has  had  to  make  up  in  quantity  for  the  absence  of 
quality.  But  he  has  at  his  disposition  an  immense 
stage,  across  which  he  could  set  his  squadrons  march- 
ing and  gliding  and  glittering.  He  could  not  count  on 
the  skill  of  his  principals  who  were  not  expert  enough 
to  demand  the  attention  of  the  spectators;  but  he 
could  seek  striking  effects  of  light  and  color  in  the  cos- 
tumes, as  he  moved  his  masses  to  and  fro  and  as  he 
swung  them  together.  If  only  there  had  been  a  little 
better  training  for  the  more  prominent  performers, 
the  'Four  Seasons'  would  have  been  a  most  artistic 
entertainment,  in  spite  of  the  absence  of  any  single 
dancer  of  real  distinction. 

181 


A  BOOK  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

IV 

The  dearth  of  remarkable  dancers  is  due  to  the  in- 
exorable fact  that  dancing  is  the  most  arduous  of  all 
the  arts;  its  technic  is  the  most  difficult  to  acquire. 
Indeed,  this  technic  can  be  acquired  only  in  early  youth, 
when  the  muscles  are  flexible  and  when  they  can  be 
suppUed  at  will.  It  is  early  in  her  teens  that  a  dancer 
must  begin  her  training  if  she  aspires  to  eminence  in 
the  art.  This  training  is  very  severe,  and  it  must 
never  be  relaxed.  Rubinstein  used  to  say  that  if  he 
omitted  his  practise  for  a  single  day  he  noticed  it  in 
his  pla3dng;  if  he  omitted  it  two  days  his  enemies 
found  it  out;  and  if  he  omitted  it  three  days  even  his 
friends  discovered  it.  The  apprentice  dancer  can  never 
omit  a  single  day  of  hard  and  uninteresting  toil.  In- 
cessant application,  during  all  the  long  years  of  youth, 
is  the  price  the  ambitious  beginner  must  pay  for  the 
mastery  of  her  art.  She  can  have  no  vacations;  she 
can  have  few  relaxations;  she  must  keep  herself  con- 
stantly in  training;  she  must  be  prepared  to  surrender 
many  of  the  things  which  make  life  worth  living. 
And  it  is  no  wonder  that  so  few  have  the  courage  to 
persevere,  and  that  there  is  only  one  Rosita  Mauri, 
only  one  Adeline  Gen^e,  and  only  one  Anna  Pavlova 
in  a  quarter  of  a  century.  It  is  no  wonder  that  the 
inventor  of  terpsichorean  spectacles  nowadays  finds 
himself  compelled  to  get  along  as  best  he  can  without 
a  satisfactory  soloist  and  to  rely  rather  on  his  handling 
of  a  mass  of  inadequately  trained  dancers. 

182 


THE    POETRY    OF   THE    DANCE 

But  even  if  the  highly  accomplished  soloist,  absolute 
mistress  of  all  the  possibilities  of  the  art,  is  very  rare, 
there  are  certain  forms  of  dancing  which  do  not  de- 
mand this  ultimate  skill  and  which  call  for  little  more 
than  grace  and  ease  and  charm,  combined  with  a 
knowledge  of  the  simpler  steps.  For  example,  the 
Spanish  Carmencita,  whose  portraits  by  Mr.  Sargent 
and  by  Mr.  Chase  now  hang  in  the  Luxembourg  in 
Paris  and  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum  in  New  York 
— Carmencita  was  not  a  skilful  dancer;  she  had  under- 
gone no  inexorable  schooling;  she  glided  thru  only  a 
few  elementary  movements.  But  she  made  no  effort; 
she  did  not  pretend  to  what  was  not  in  her  power; 
she  was  simple  and  unaffected.  Her  charm  was  not 
in  her  singing  or  in  her  dancing;  it  was  in  her  person- 
ality, in  the  alluring  and  exotic  suggestion  of  her 
individuality. 

Nor  could  anybody  venture  to  assert  that  Miss  Kate 
Vaughan  and  Miss  Letty  Lind  were  dancers  in  the 
same  class  with  Mauri,  Gen^e,  and  Pavlova;  but  then 
they  did  not  pretend  to  be.  They  knew  only  a  few 
steps  of  obvious  simplicity,  and  they  displayed  no  un- 
expected dexterity.  But  the  skirt-dance  as  they  per- 
formed it  was  a  memory  of  delight,  with  its  grace  and 
its  ease,  with  its  perfect  rhythm  and  with  the  swish  of 
its  clinging  draperies.  It  had  a  fascination  of  its  own, 
quite  different  from  the  fascination  of  the  more  poetic 
and  ethereal  ballet-dancing  of  Rita  Sangalli  and  Rosita 
Mauri.  It  was  not  of  the  stage  exactly,  but  almost  of 
the  drawing-room.    It  gave  the  same  pleasure  which 

183 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

we  felt  when  we  were  privileged  to  behold  a  court 
minuet  led  by  the  late  Mrs.  G.  H.  Gilbert,  who  had 
been  a  dancer  in  the  days  of  her  youth.  There  is  one 
perfect  beauty  of  the  best  ballet-dancing  and  there 
are  other  beauties  of  different  kinds  in  the  skirt-dancing 
of  the  two  Englishwomen  and  in  the  languorous  sway- 
ing of  the  Spanish  gipsy. 

Beauty  of  yet  another  order  there  was  in  an  exhibi- 
tion which  was  called  a  dance,  perhaps  because  there 
was  no  other  word  for  it,  but  which  demanded  no  skill 
with  the  feet  and  which  necessitated  rather  strength 
in  the  arms.  This  was  the  luminous  dance  of  Miss 
Loie  Fuller,  when  she  swirled  voluminous  and  pro- 
longed draperies  in  lights  that  came  from  above  and 
from  below,  and  from  both  sides — lights  that  changed 
by  exquisite  gradations  from  one  tint  to  another,  the 
figure  of  the  dancer  spinning  around,  now  slowly  and 
now  swiftly,  while  her  arms  weaved  fantastic  circles 
in  the  air,  revealing  unexpected  combinations  of  color, 
controlled  by  perfect  taste.  This  may  not  have  been 
dancing,  by  any  strict  definition  of  the  word,  but  it 
was  decorative,  artistic,  imaginative,  and  inexpressibly 
beautiful.  It  suppHed  a  glimpse  of  unsuspected  de- 
light; and  probably  Terpsichore  would  not  disdain  to 
claim  it  for  her  own,  however  vigorously  she  might  re- 
pel the  suggestion  that  she  had  any  responsibility  for 
the  violence  of  the  toe-dances,  for  the  vulgarity  of  the 
pony  ballet,  or  for  the  ungainly  caperings  which  pre- 
tend to  recapture  the  free  movements  of  the  Greeks. 

(1910-1916.) 

184 


XI 

THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  PANTOMIME 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  PANTOMIME 


In  his  suggestive  study  of  ancient  and  modem  drama, 
M.  Emile  Faguet  dwells  on  the  fact  that  the  drama  is 
the  only  one  of  the  arts  which  can  employ  to  advantage 
the  aid  of  all  the  other  arts.  The  muses  of  tragedy 
and  comedy  can  borrow  narrative  from  the  muse  of 
epic  poetry  and  song  from  the  muse  of  lyric  poetry. 
They  can  avail  themselves  of  oratory,  music,  and 
dancing.  They  can  profit  by  the  assistance  of  the 
architect,  the  sculptor,  and  the  painter.  They  can 
draw  on  the  co-operation  of  all  the  other  arts  without 
ceasing  to  be  themselves  and  without  losing  any  of 
their  essential  qualities.  This  was  seen  clearly  by 
Wagner,  who  insisted  that  his  music-dramas  were 
really  the  art-work  of  the  future,  in  that  they  were  the 
result  of  a  combination  of  all  the  arts.  Quite  possibly 
the  Greeks  had  the  same  idea,  since  Athenian  tragedy 
has  many  points  of  similarity  to  Wagner's  music- 
drama;  it  had  epic  passages  and  a  lyric  chorus  set  to 
music;  it  called  for  stately  dancing  against  an  archi- 
tectural background. 

But  altho  the  muses  of  the  drama  may  invoke  the 
help  of  their  seven  sisters,  they  need  not  make  this 
appeal  unless  they  choose.    They  can  give  their  per- 

187 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

formances  on  a  bare  platform,  or  in  the  open  air,  and 
thus  get  along  without  painting  and  architecture. 
They  can  disdain  the  support  of  song  and  dance  and 
music.  They  can  concentrate  all  their  effort  upon 
themselves  and  provide  a  play  which  is  a  play  and 
nothing  else.  And  this  is  what  Ibsen  has  done  in  his 
somber  social-dramas.  'Ghosts,'  for  example,  is  inde- 
pendent of  anything  extraneous  to  the  drama.  It  is 
a  play,  only  a  play,  and  nothing  more  than  a  play. 

Yet  it  is  possible  to  reduce  the  drama  to  an  even 
barer  state  than  we  find  in  Ibsen's  gloomy  tragedy  in 
prose.  Ibsen's  characters  speak;  they  reveal  them- 
selves in  speech;  and  it  is  by  words  that  they  carry 
on  the  story.  A  story  can  be  presented  on  the  stage, 
however,  without  the  use  of  words,  without  the  aid  of 
the  human  voice,  by  the  employment  of  gesture  only, 
by  pure  pantomime.  No  doubt,  the  drama  makes  a 
great  sacrifice  when  it  decides  to  do  without  that  potent 
instrument  of  emotional  appeal,  the  human  voice;  and 
yet  it  can  find  its  profit,  now  and  then,  in  this  self- 
imposed  deprivation.  Certain  stories  there  are,  not 
many,  and  all  of  them  necessarily  simplified  and  made 
very  clear,  which  gain  by  being  bereft  of  the  spoken 
word  and  by  being  presented  only  in  the  pantomime. 
And  these  stories,  simple  as  they  must  be,  if  they  are 
to  be  apprehended  by  sight  alone  without  the  aid  of 
sound,  are,  nevertheless,  capable  of  supporting  an 
actual  play  with  all  the  absolutely  necessary  elements 
of  a  drama. 

In  his  interesting  and  illuminating  volume  on  the 

188 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF    PANTOMIME 

'Theory  of  the  Theater/  Mr.  Clayton  Hamilton  has  a 
carefully  considered  definition  of  a  play.  He  asserts 
that  "  a  play  is  a  story  devised  to  be  presented  by  ac- 
tors on  a  stage  before  an  audience."  Perhaps  it  might 
be  possible  to  amend  this  by  sajdng  "in  a  theater/' 
instead  of  "on  a  stage/'  since  we  are  now  pretty  cer- 
tain that  there  was  no  stage  in  the  Greek  theater  when 
Sophocles  was  writing  for  it.  But  this  is  but  a  trifling 
correction,  and  the  definition  as  a  whole  is  excellent. 
It  includes  every  possible  kind  of  dramatic  entertain- 
ment, Greek  tragedy  and  Roman  comedy,  medieval 
farce  and  modern  melodrama,  the  music-drama  of 
Wagner  and  the  problem-play  of  Ibsen,  the  summer 
song-show  and  the  college  boy's  burlesque.  Obviously 
it  includes  the  wordless  play,  the  story  devised  to  be 
presented  on  a  stage  and  before  an  audience  by  ac- 
tors who  use  gesture  only  and  who  do  not  speak. 

In  forgoing  the  aid  of  words  the  drama  is  only  re- 
ducing itself  to  its  absolutely  necessary  elements — a 
story,  and  a  story  which  can  be  shown  in  action.  It 
is  not  quite  true  that  the  skeleton  of  a  good  play  is 
always  a  pantomime,  since  there  are  plays  the  plot 
of  which  cannot  be  conveyed  to  the  audience  except 
by  actual  speech.  Yet  some  of  the  greatest  plays  have 
plots  so  transparent  that  the  story  is  clear,  even  if  we 
fail  to  hear  what  the  actors  are  sajdng.  It  has  been 
asserted  that  if  'Hamlet,'  for  example,  were  to  be  per- 
formed in  a  deaf-and-dumb  asylum,  the  inmates  would 
be  able  to  imderstand  it  and  to  enjoy  it.  They  would 
be  deprived  of  the  wonderful  beauty  of  Shakspere's 

189 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

verse,  no  doubt,  and  they  would  scarcely  be  able  even 
to  guess  at  the  deeper  significance  of  the  philosophy 
which  enriches  the  tragedy;  but  the  story  would  un- 
roll itself  clearly  before  their  eyes  so  that  they  could 
follow  the  succession  of  scenes  with  adequate  under- 
standing. 

With  his  customary  shrewdness  and  his  usual  gift 
of  piercing  to  the  center  of  what  he  was  engaged  in 
analyzing,  Aristotle  more  than  four  thousand  years 
ago  saw  the  necessity  of  a  neatly  articulated  plot.  "  If 
you  string  together  a  set  of  speeches,"  he  said,  "expres- 
sive of  character  and  well  finished  in  point  of  diction 
and  thought,  you  will  not  produce  the  essential  tragic 
effect  nearly  so  well  as  with  a  play,  which,  however 
deficient  in  these  respects,  yet  has  a  plot  and  artis- 
tically constructed  incidents."  No  broader  statement 
than  this  could  be  made  as  to  the  all-importance  of  the 
story  itself — and  pantomime  is  a  story  and  nothing 
else,  a  story  capable  of  being  translated  by  the  actions 
of  the  performers,  without  the  aid  of  speech.  Nor 
need  we  suppose  that  a  play  without  words  is  neces- 
sarily devoid  of  poetry.  There  may  be  poetry  in  the 
"set  of  speeches  expressive  of  character  and  well  fin- 
ished in  point  of  thought  and  diction";  but  there  may 
be  poetry  also  in  the  theme  itself,  in  the  actual  story. 
*  Romeo  and  Juliet,'  for  example,  is  fundamentally 
poetic  in  its  theme,  and  it  retains  its  poetic  quaHty 
even  when  it  is  made  to  serve  as  the  libretto  of  an  op- 
era, as  it  would  also  retain  this  if  it  should  be  stripped 
bare  to  be  presented  in  pantomime. 

190 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF    PANTOMIME 

In  a  recent  work  on  the  'Essentials  of  Poetry/  Pro- 
fessor William  A.  Neilson  has  made  this  clear:  "Many 
a  drama  is  a  genuine  poetic  creation,  altho  it  may  be 
simple  to  the  point  of  baldness  in  diction  and  exhibit 
the  fmidamental  qualities  of  poetry  only  in  the  char- 
acterization and  in  the  significance;  proportion,  and 
verisimilitude  of  the  plot."  That  is  to  say,  the  drama 
can  use  two  kinds  of  poetry,  that  which  is  internal  and 
contained  in  the  plot,  and  that  which  is  external  and 
confined  to  the  language.    It  can  employ 

jewels  five-words  long. 
That  on  the  stretched  forefinger  of  all  Time 
Sparkle  forever. 

But  it  can  also  attain  poetry  without  the  use  of 
superb  and  sonorous  phrases  and  solely  by  its  choice 
of  theme.  This  is  what  the  poets  have  often  felt,  and 
as  a  result  French  lyrists,  like  Th^ophile  Gautier  and 
Frangois  Copp^e,  have  not  disdained  to  compose  li- 
brettos for  pantomimic  ballets,  'Giselle'  and  the  'Kor- 
rigane.'  One  of  the  most  successful  of  the  recent 
Russian  ballets  was  simply  a  representation  of  Gau- 
tier's  poetic  fantasy,  'One  of  Cleopatra's  Nights.' 

II 

Perhaps  because  the  pantomime  contains  only  the 
essential  element  of  the  drama — action — it  has  always 
been  a  popular  form  of  play;  and  it  appears  very 
early  in  the  history  of  the  theater.    Indeed,  it  seems 

191 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

to  be  the  sole  type  of  play  achievable  by  primitive  man 
— ^if  we  may  judge  from  observations  made  among 
savages  who  are  still  in  the  earlier  periods  of  social  de- 
velopment. Gesture  precedes  speech,  and  a  panto- 
mime was  possible  even  before  a  vocabulary  was  de- 
veloped. In  the  Aleutian  Islands,  for  example,  the 
pantomime  is  the  only  form  of  play  known.  One  of 
the  little  plays  of  the  islanders  has  been  described. 
It  was  acted  by  two  performers  only,  one  representing 
a  hunter,  and  the  other  a  bird.  The  hunter  hesitates 
but  finally  kills  the  bird  with  an  arrow;  then  he  is 
seized  with  regret  that  he  has  slain  so  noble  a  bird; 
whereupon  the  bird  revives  and  turns  into  a  beautiful 
woman  who  falls  into  the  hunter's  arms.  This  is  the 
simplest  of  stories,  but  it  lends  itself  to  effective  act- 
ing; it  is  capable  of  being  interpreted  adequately  by 
means  of  gesture  alone;  and  it  is  just  the  kind  of  play 
which  would  appeal  to  an  Aleutian  audience,  being 
wholly  within  their  experience  and  their  apprehension. 
Pantomime  flourished  in  Rome  and  in  Constanti- 
nople in  the  sorry  years  of  the  decline  and  fall  of  the 
empire;  and  it  was  then  low  and  lascivious.  A  great 
part  of  the  fierce  hostility  to  the  theater  displayed  by 
the  Fathers  of  the  Christian  Church  was  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  only  drama  of  which  they  had  any  knowl- 
edge was  pantomime  of  a  most  objectionable  character, 
offensive  in  theme  and  even  more  offensive  in  presen- 
tation. With  the  conversion  of  the  empire  to  Chris- 
tianity, pantomimes  of  this  type,  appeahng  only  to 
lewd  fellows  of  the  baser  sort,  was  very  properly  pro- 

192 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF    PANTOMIME 

hibited.  But  pantomime  of  another  type  sprang  up 
in  the  Middle  Ages  in  the  Christian  churches  to  exem- 
pHfy  and  to  make  visible  to  the  ignorant  congregations, 
certain  episodes  of  sacred  history.  In  the  Renascence 
dumb-shows  were  represented  before  monarchs,  at  their 
weddings  and  at  their  stately  entrances  into  loyal 
cities.  And  dumb-shows  were  often  employed  in  the 
EHzabethan  stage,  sometimes  as  prologs  to  the  several 
acts,  as  in  'Gorboduc,'  for  example,  and  sometimes 
within  the  play  itseK,  as  in  'Hamlet.' 

In  the  eighteenth  century  pantomime  had  a  double 
revival,  in  France  and  in  England.  In  France,  Noverre 
elevated  the  ballet  d'action,  that  is  to  say,  the  story 
told  in  pantomime  and  adorned  with  dances.  Some- 
times these  ballets  d'adion  were  in  several  acts,  relying 
for  interest  on  the  simple  yet  ingenious  plot,  and  only 
decorated,  so  to  speak,  with  occasional  dances.  From 
Noverre  and  from  France  the  tradition  of  the  panto- 
mime with  interludes  of  dancing,  spread  at  first  to 
Italy  and  Austria,  and  later  to  Russia. 

In  England  the  development  of  pantomime  was 
upon  different  lines,  due  to  the  influence  of  the  Italian 
comedy-of-masks,  with  its  unchanging  figures  of  Pan- 
taleone,  Colimibina,  and  Arlecchino.  These  figures 
were  still  further  simplified;  and  to  Pantaloon,  Colum- 
bine, and  Harlequin  there  was  added  the  characteris- 
tically British  figure  of  the  Clown.  The  most  famous 
impersonator  of  the  clown  was  Grimaldi,  whose  mem- 
oirs were  edited  by  Charles  Dickens.  The  mantle 
of  Grimaldi  fell  upon  an  American,  G.  L.  Fox,  whose 

193 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

greatest  triumph,  in  the  late  sixties,  was  in  a  panto- 
mime called  'Humpty-Dumpty' — ^the  riming  prolog 
of  which  was  written  by  A.  Oakey  Hall  (then  Tweed's 
mayor  of  New  York).  G.  L.  Fox  and  his  brother,  C. 
K.  Fox  (who  was  the  inventor  of  the  comic  scenes),  had 
been  preceded  in  America  by  a  family  of  French  pan- 
tomimists  known  as  the  Ravels;  and  they  were  followed 
by  the  family  known  as  the  Hanlon-Lees,  who  had 
originally  been  acrobats,  and  who  appeared  in  a  French 
play,  in  which  the  other  characters  spoke  while  the 
Hanlon-Lees  expressed  themselves  only  in  gestm'e. 
Here  again  Scribe  had  been  before  them,  with  his  li- 
bretto for  the  opera  of  '  Masaniello,'  in  which  there  is  a 
principal  part  for  a  pantomimic  actress,  Fenella.  And 
when  the  great  French  actor,  Fr^d^ric  Lemaitre,  had 
lost  his  voice  by  overstrain,  Dennery  wrote  a  play  for 
him,  the  'Old  Corporal,'  in  which  he  appeared  as  a 
soldier  of  Napoleon's  Old  Guard,  who  had  been  stricken 
dumb  during  the  retreat  from  Russia. 

This  exploit  of  Fr^d^ric  Lemaitre's  is  not  as  ex- 
traordinary as  it  seems.  A  truly  accomplished  actor 
ought  to  be  able  to  forgo  the  aid  of  speech.  Even  in 
our  modem  plays  gesture  is  more  significant  than 
speech.  To  place  the  finger  on  the  lips  is  more  effec- 
tive than  to  say  "Hush !"  The  tendency  of  the  mod- 
em drama  on  our  amply  lighted  picture-frame  stage  is 
to  subordinate  the  mere  words  to  the  expressive  action. 
In  Mr.  Gillette's  'Secret  Service,'  for  example,  the  im- 
pression is  sometimes  made  rather  by  gesture  than  by 
speech;  and  a  large  portion  of  the  most  effective  scene, 

194 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF   PANTOMIME 

that  where  the  hero  is  wounded  while  he  is  sending  a 
telegraph  message,  is  presented  in  pantomime  with 
little  assistance  from  actual  dialog.  Similar  effects 
are  to  be  found  in  many  of  Mr.  Belasco's  plays,  espe- 
cially in  the  'DarHng  of  the  Gods.'  In  all  good  acting 
the  gesture  precedes  the  word;  and  often  the  gesture 
makes  the  word  itself  unnecessary,  because  it  has  suc- 
ceeded in  conveying  the  impression  and  in  making 
the  full  effect  by  itself,  so  that  the  spoken  phrase  lags 
superfluous. 

Ill 

In  France  in  the  final  decades  of  the  nineteenth 
century  there  was  a  wide-spread  revival  of  interest  in 
pantomime,  where  the  art  had  been  dormant  since  the 
days  of  Deburau.  A  society  was  formed  for  its  en- 
couragement, and  a  host  of  little  wordless  plays  was 
the  result.  The  most  ambitious  effort  was  the  'Enfant 
Prodigue,'  a  genuine  comedy  in  three  acts,  by  M.  Michel 
Carr6,  with  music  by  M.  Alfred  Wormser.  This  word- 
less play  on  the  perennially  attractive  theme  of  the 
Prodigal  Son  proved  to  be  the  modem  masterpiece  of 
pantomime.  It  was  limpidly  clear  in  its  story;  it  was 
'ingeniously  put  together  in  its  plot;  it  combined  hxmaor 
and  pathos;  and  it  was  devoid  of  the  acrobatic  features 
and  of  the  slap-stick  fun  which  have  generally  been 
considered  the  inevitable  accessories  of  pantomime. 
We  had  brought  before  us  the  dull  and  prim  home  life 
of  old  Pierrot  and  of  his  wife,  and  we  were  made  to 

195 


A   BOOK   ABOUT   THE   THEATER 

behold  the  impatience  of  young  Pierrot  with  this  prim 
duUness.  We  saw  the  Prodigal  rob  his  father  and  go 
forth  in  search  of  pleasure.  In  the  second  act  we  were 
witnesses  of  the  sad  results  of  the  pleasure  young 
Pierrot  had  sought  superabundantly,  and  we  discov- 
ered that  he  had  spent  his  money  and  that  he  was 
capable  of  descending  to  marked  cards  to  win  more 
gold  to  satisfy  the  caprices  of  the  woman  who  had 
fascinated  him.  We  saw  his  return  with  his  ill-gotten 
gains  after  his  charmer  had  been  tempted  to  go  off  with 
a  wealthier  man.  And  in  the  third  act  we  were  taken 
back  to  the  home  of  his  broken-hearted  parents;  and 
we  witnessed  the  Prodigal's  return,  poverty-stricken, 
disenchanted,  and  reformed.  His  mother  takes  him 
to  her  arms;  but  his  father  is  obdurate.  Then  we 
hear  the  fife  and  drum  afar  off,  and  young  Pierrot,  if 
he  has  Hved  unworthily  for  himself,  can  at  least  die 
worthily  for  his  country.  So  the  old  father  relents  and 
bestows  his  blessing  on  the  erring  son  as  the  boy  goes 
forth  to  war. 

The  art  of  the  'Enfant  Prodigue'  was  at  once  deli- 
cate and  firm;  and  its  popularity  was  not  confined  to 
France.  Here  was  a  true  play,  moving  to  tears  as  well 
as  to  laughter,  holding  the  interest  by  a  human  story 
of  universal  appeal.  It  was  taken  across  the  Channel 
from  Paris  to  London,  and  from  London  it  was  taken 
across  the  ocean  to  New  York.  Augustin  Daly,  always 
on  the  alert  for  novelty,  brought  it  out  at  his  own 
theater,  first  with  his  own  company,  and  then  a  Kttle 
later  with  a  French  company.    Excellent  as  was  the 

196 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF   PANTOMIME 

perfonnance  of  the  French  company,  two  characters 
were  as  well  sustained  by  the  American  company. 
Charles  Leclercq  appeared  as  old  Pierrot,  and  he  had 
had  in  his  youth  experience  in  pantomime  in  England. 
Mrs.  G.  H.  Gilbert  appeared  as  Mrs.  Pierrot,  and  in 
her  youth  she  had  been  a  ballet  dancer,  and  had  taken 
part  in  pantomimes.  To  these  two  performers  the 
principles  of  the  art  of  gesture  were  perfectly  familiar; 
and  it  was  a  constant  delight  to  follow  the  dexterity 
and  the  adequacy  of  their  gestures.  But  Miss  Rehan, 
who  appeared  as  the  Prodigal  Son,  had  had  no  panto- 
mimic experience,  and  she  was  not  able  to  acquire  the 
art  offhand.  In  dozens  of  dramas  she  had  revealed 
herself  as  an  actress,  not  only  of  great  personal  charm, 
but  also  of  great  histrionic  skill.  Merely  as  an  actress 
she  was  incomparably  superior  to  the  impersonator  of 
the  Prodigal  Son  in  the  French  company;  but  merely 
as  a  pantomimist  she  was  inferior.  More  than  once 
she  appeared  as  if  she  wanted  to  speak,  failing  because 
she  was  deprived  of  voice.  Her  gestures  seemed  like 
afterthoughts;  they  lacked  spontaneity  and  inevita- 
bility. She  suggested  at  moments  that  she  was  a  poor 
dumb  boy  gasping  for  words. 

Now,  the  convention  underlying  pantomime  is  that 
we  are  beholding  a  story  carried  on  by  a  race  of  beings 
whose  natural  method  of  communicating  information 
and  ideas  is  gesture — ^just  as  the  convention  of  opera 
is  that  we  are  beholding  a  story  carried  on  by  a  race 
of  beings  whose  natural  method  of  conamunicating  in- 
formation and  ideas  is  song.    No  such  races  of  beings 

197 


A   BOOK   ABOUT   THE   THEATER 

ever  existed;  but  we  must  admit  the  existence  of  such 
races  as  a  condition  precedent  to  our  enjoyment  of 
pantomime  and  of  opera.  The  spectators  must  accept 
the  art  as  it  is,  and  the  performers  must  refrain  from 
any  suggestion  that  they  would  speak  if  they  could. 
This  underlying  convention  was  viciously  violated  in 
"Professor"  Reinhardt's  overpraised  'Sumurun/  when 
the  Hunchback  gives  a  shriek  of  horror  as  he  sees  the 
woman  he  loves  in  the  arms  of  another  man.  It  is 
viciously  violated  again  in  the  same  play  when  Sumurun 
and  two  attendants  are  heard  singing.  K  Sumimm 
can  sing,  why  can  she  not  speak?  If  the  Hunchback 
can  shriek  and  sob  audibly,  why  is  he  ordinarily  re- 
duced to  mere  gesture  ? 

'Sumurun'  was  provided  with  a  plot  devised  by 
Herr  Freksa,  and  with  music  composed  by  Herr  Hol- 
laender;  and  it  was  produced  by  "Professor"  Max 
Reinhardt.  The  story  was  a  httle  complicated,  and 
it  lacked  the  transparent  simpUcity  of  the  'Enfant 
Prodigue,'  as  it  lacked  also  the  broad  humanity  of  the 
French  piece.  Its  chief  claim  to  attention  was  that 
it  is  an  amusing  spectacle,  sensual  as  well  as  sensuous. 
Its  humor  had  a  Teutonic  heaviness  in  marked  contrast 
with  the  Gallic  hghtness  of  the  'Enfant  Prodigue.' 
"Professor"  Reinhardt  sought  eccentricity  rather  than 
originality,  queemess  rather  than  beauty.  His  effort 
was  directed  to  the  achieving  of  something  unexpected 
and  something  different  rather  than  to  the  attaining 
of  something  good  in  itself,  or  of  something  poetic. 
Esthetically,  musically,  dramatically  the  German  pan- 

198 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF   PANTOMIME 

tomime  was  pitiably  inferior  to  the  French;  and  yet  so 
potent  and  so  permanent  is  the  appeal  of  the  wordless 
play  that  'Sumumn'  pleased  a  host  of  younger  play- 
goers, not  old  enough  to  be  able  to  recall  the  *  Enfant 
Prodigue^  or  'Humpty-Dumpty/  the  Hanlon-Lees,  or 
the  Ravels. 


IV 

'Sumurun/  like  the  'Enfant  Prodigue/  was  sup- 
ported by  its  music,  which  sustained  the  gestures  and 
which  sometimes  suggested  more  than  gesture  alone 
can  do.  In  the  'Enfant  Prodigue,'  for  example,  one 
of  the  most  amusing  scenes  is  that  in  which  the  elderly 
rich  man  tenders  his  affections  to  the  charmer  who  has 
fascinated  the  Prodigal  Son.  She  insists  upon  marriage. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  convey  this  idea  in  pure  panto- 
mime. So  she  points  to  the  fourth  finger  of  the  left 
hand,  and  the  orchestra  plays  the  famiUar  Wedding 
March,  thus  instantly  conveying  the  idea.  When  she 
goes  off  to  get  her  bonnet,  the  elderly  suitor  repeats  her 
gesture,  and  the  orchestra  repeats  the  Wedding  March, 
whereupon  he  winks  and  shakes  his  head,  giving  us 
clearly  to  understand  that  his  intentions  are  strictly 
dishonorable. 

'Sumurun'  is  rather  a  spectacle  than  a  play;  and 
therefore  it  makes  comparatively  Httle  use  of  the  con- 
ventionalized gestures  which  may  be  described  as  the 
accepted  vocabulary  of  pantomime,  and  which  have 
been  developed  by  the  followers  of  Noverre  in  France 

199 


A   BOOK   ABOUT   THE   THEATER 

and  in  Italy.  This  vocabulary  of  gesture  is  only  a 
codification  of  the  signs  which  we  naturally  make — 
shaking  the  head  for  "no,"  nodding  for  "yes,"  and 
laying  a  finger  on  the  lips  for  "hush!"  The  basis  of 
any  such  vocabulary  must  be  the  series  of  gestures  by 
the  aid  of  which  man  has  always  expressed  his  emotions. 
This  is  why  the  traditional  gestures  of  theatrical  pan- 
tomime do  not,  and  indeed  cannot,  differ  greatly  from 
any  natural  sign  language.  The  universality  of  this 
pantomimic  vocabulary  was  curiously  evidenced  forty 
years  ago  when  Morlacchi,  the  Italian  dancer,  married 
Texas  Jack,  the  American  scout.  She  had  been  trained 
in  pantomime  at  La  Scala,  in  Milan,  and  he  had  ac- 
quii-ed  the  sign  language  of  the  Plains  Indians.  And 
they  found  that  they  could  hold  converse  with  each 
other  in  pantomime,  she  using  the  Italian-French  ges- 
tures and  he  employing  the  gestures  of  the  redskins. 
(1912.) 


200 


xn 

THE  IDEAL  OF  THE  ACROBAT 


THE  IDEAL  OF  THE  ACROBAT 


When  Huckleberry  Finn  went  to  the  circus  he  sneaked 
in  under  the  tent  when  the  watchman  was  absent. 
He  had  money  in  his  pocket,  but  he  feared  that  he 
might  need  this.  "I  ain't  opposed  to  spending  money 
on  circuses,"  he  confessed,  "when  there  ain't  no  other 
way,  but  there  ain't  no  use  in  wasting  it  on  them." 
In  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  had  not  paid  for  his  seat, 
and  that  he  was  thereby  released  from  the  necessity 
of  getting  his  money's  worth,  he  declared  cheerfully 
that  "it  was  a  real  bully  circus.  It  was  the  splendidest 
sight  that  ever  was,  when  they  all  come  riding  in,  two 
and  two,  a  gentleman  and  a  lady,  side  by  side,  the  men 
just  in  their  drawers  and  undershirts,  and  no  shoes 
nor  stirrups,  and  resting  their  hands  on  their  thighs, 
easy  and  comfortable  .  .  .  and  every  lady  with  a 
lovely  complexion,  and  perfectly  beautiful,  and  look- 
ing like  a  gang  of  real  sure-enough  queens.  .  .  .  And 
then,  one  by  one,  they  got  up  and  stood,  and  went 
a-weaving  aroimd  the  ring  so  gentle  and  wavy  and 
graceful,  the  men  looking  ever  so  tall  and  airy  and 
straight,  with  their  heads  bobbing  and  skimming  along, 
away  up  there  under  the  tent  roof,  and  every  lady's 

203 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

rose-leaf  dress  flapping  soft  and  silky  around  her  hips, 
and  she  looking  like  the  most  loveliest  parasol." 

However  much  Huck  was  impressed  by  the  Grand 
Entry,  he  seems  to  have  been  more  pleased  by  the  sur- 
prising act,  traditionally  known  as  'Pete  Jenkins,^  and 
never  better  described  than  by  Mark  Twain's  youth- 
ful hero.  "And  by  and  by  a  drunk  man  tried  to  get 
into  the  ring — said  he  wanted  to  ride;  said  he  could 
ride  as  well  as  anybody  that  ever  was.  They  argued 
and  tried  to  keep  him  out,  but  he  wouldn't  listen,  and 
the  whole  show  came  to  a  standstill.  Then  the  people 
began  to  holler  at  him  and  make  fun  of  him.  ...  So 
then  the  ring-master  he  made  a  Httle  speech,  and  said 
he  hoped  there  wouldn't  be  no  disturbance,  and  if  the 
man  would  promise  he  wouldn't  make  no  more  trouble, 
he  would  let  him  ride,  if  he  thought  he  could  stay  on 
the  horse.  .  .  .  The  minute  he  was  on  the  horse  he 
began  to  rip  and  tear  and  jump  and  cavort  around  .  .  . 
the  drunk  man  hanging  onto  his  neck,  and  his  heels 
flying  in  the  air  every  jump.  .  .  .  But  pretty  soon  he 
struggled  up  astraddle  and  grabbed  the  bridle,  a-reeling 
this  way  and  that;  and  the  next  minute  he  sprung  up 
and  stood !  and  the  horse  a-going  like  a  house  afire,  too. 
He  just  stood  there,  a-sailing  around  as  easy  and  as 
comfortable  as  if  he  wam't  ever  drunk  in  his  life — ^and 
then  he  begun  to  pull  off  his  clothes  and  sling  them. 
He  shed  them  so  thick  they  kind  of  clogged  up  the  air, 
and  altogether  he  shed  seventeen  suits.  And  then,  here 
he  was,  slim  and  handsome,  and  dressed  the  grandiest 
and  prettiest  you  ever  saw,  and  he  Ut  into  that  horse  and 

204 


THE    IDEAL    OF   THE    ACROBAT 

made  him  hum — and  finally  skipped  off  and  made  his 
bow  and  danced  off  to  the  dressing-room,  and  every- 
body just  a-howling  with  pleasure  and  astonishment. 
Then  the  ring-master,  he  see  how  he  had  been  fooled, 
and  he  was  the  sickest  ring-master  you  ever  see,  I 
reckon.  Why,  it  was  one  of  his  own  men!  He  had 
got  up  that  joke  all  out  of  his  own  head,  and  never  let 
on  to  nobody!" 

Yet  in  this  enjoyment  of  a  practical  joke,  dear  to 
every  boy's  heart,  Huck  did  not  fail  to  note  that  the 
skilful  rider  who  had  pretended  to  be  intoxicated, 
stood  up  at  last,  "slim  and  handsome."  Even  Huck 
Finn,  neglected  son  of  the  town-drunkard,  was  quick 
to  respond  to  the  appeal  of  the  supple  and  well-pro- 
portioned figure  of  the  rider  after  the  superimposed 
clothing  had  been  discarded,  just  as  he  had  felt  the 
attraction  of  the  varied  colors  and  the  graceful  evolu- 
tions of  the  Grand  Entry.  At  bottom,  it  was  the  beauty 
of  the  display  that  he  appreciated  most  keenly.  By  the 
side  of  this  passage  from  Mark  Twain's  masterpiece 
may  be  set  a  passage  from  Mr.  Hamlin  Garland's  best 
story,  'Rose  of  Butcher's  Coolly,'  in  which  we  find  re- 
corded the  impressions  of  a  girl  of  about  the  same  age, 
the  daughter  of  a  hard-working  Wisconsin  farmer. 
Rose  had  never  seen  a  circus  before,  and  even  the 
morning  street  parade  fired  her  imagination. 

"On  they  came,  a  band  leading  the  way.  Just  be- 
hind, with  ghtter  of  lance  and  shine  of  helmet,  came  a 
dozen  knights  and  fair  ladies  riding  spirited  chargers. 
They  all  looked  strange  and  haughty,  and  sneeringly 

205 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

indifferent  to  the  cheers  of  the  people.  The  women 
seemed  small  and  firm  and  scornful,  and  the  men  rode 
with  lances  uplifted,  looking  down  at  the  crowd  with 
a  haughty  droop  in  their  eyelids."  Rose  "did  not 
laugh  at  the  clown  jigging  by  in  a  pony-cart,  for  there 
was  a  face  between  her  and  all  that  followed — ^the  face 
of  a  bare-armed  knight,  with  brown  hair  and  a  curling 
mustache,  whose  proud  neck  had  a  curve  in  it  as  he 
bent  his  head  to  speak  to  his  rearing  horse.  .  .  .  His 
face  was  fine,  like  pictures  she  had  seen." 

In  the  afternoon  Rose  attended  the  performance  in 
the  tent  and  "sat  in  a  dream  of  delight  as  the  band 
began  to  play.  .  .  .  Then  the  music  struck  into  a 
splendid  gallop  and  out  from  the  curtained  mysteries 
beyond,  the  knights  and  ladies  darted,  two  by  two, 
in  glory  of  crimson  and  gold,  and  green  and  silver.  At 
their  head  rode  the  man  with  the  brown  mustache." 
A  Httle  later  "six  men  dressed  in  tights  of  blue  and 
white  and  orange  ran  into  the  ring,  and  her  hero  led 
them.  He  wore  blue  and  silver,  and  on  his  breast  was 
a  rosette.  He  looked  a  god  to  her.  His  naked  limbs, 
his  proud  neck,  the  lofty  carriage  of  his  head,  made 
her  shiver  with  emotion.  They  all  came  to  her,  lit 
by  the  white  radiance;  they  were  not  naked,  they  were 
beautiful.  .  .  .  They  invested  their  nakedness  with 
something  which  exalted  them.  They  became  objects 
of  luminous  beauty  to  her,  tho  she  knew  nothing  of  art. 
To  see  him  bow  and  kiss  his  fingers  to  the  audience  was 
a  revelation  of  manly  grace  and  courtesy."  When  at 
laat  the  show  was  over  and  Rose  went  out  into  the 

206 


THE    IDEAL    OF    THE    ACROBAT 

open  air,  "it  seemed  strange  to  see  the  same  blue  sky 
arching  the  earth;  things  seemed  exactly  the  same, 
and  yet  Rose  had  grown  older.  She  had  developed 
immeasurably  in  those  few  hours."  As  they  looked 
back  at  the  tents,  Rose  knew  that  "something  sweet 
and  splendid  and  mystical  was  passing  out  of  her  life 
after  a  few  hours'  stay  there.  Her  feeling  of  loss  was 
none  the  less  real  because  it  was  indefinable  to  her." 

She  never  saw  this  acrobat  again,  and  after  a  little 
while  she  knew  that  she  did  not  want  to  see  him.  He 
lingered  in  her  memory,  a  vision  from  another  world 
than  any  she  had  ever  dreamed — a  world  of  heroic 
romance  and  of  lofty  idealism.  "She  began  to  live 
for  him,  her  ideal.  She  set  him  on  high  as  a  being  to 
be  worshiped,  as  a  man  fit  to  be  her  judge.  In  the 
days  and  weeks  which  followed  she  asked  herself: 
'Would  he  like  me  to  do  this?'  When  the  sunset  was 
very  beautiful,  she  thought  of  him.  .  .  .  Vast  ambi- 
tions began  in  her.  .  .  .  She  would  do  something  great 
for  his  sake.  ...  In  short,  she  consecrated  herself  to 
him  as  to  a  king,  and  seized  upon  every  chance  to  edu- 
cate herself  to  be  worthy  of  him."  And  while  her  soul 
was  thus  expanding  under  the  influence  of  this  poetic 
idealization  of  a  manly  figure  revealed  to  her  only  for 
two  or  three  hours,  all  unconsciously  she  patterned  her 
movements  upon  his.  She  walked  with  a  free  stride, 
and  her  body  came  to  have  the  easy  carriage  of  the 
athlete.  Later,  when  Rose  had  matured  into  a  beauty 
of  her  own,  she  confessed  to  an  elder  woman  this  senti- 
mental awakening  in  her  early  girlhood ;  and  it  became 

207 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

evident  to  her  friend  that  "the  beautiful  poise  of  the 
head,  and  supple  swing  of  the  girl's  body  was  in  part 
due  to  the  suggestion  of  the  man's  perfect  grace." 


II 

To  the  reaUstic  imagination  of  the  boy,  Huck,  the 
circus  was  a  fleeting  spectacle  of  beauty;  and  to  the 
romantic  imagination  of  the  girl,  Rose,  it  lingered  long 
as  a  dream  of  poetry.  Young  Americans,  both  of  them, 
living  in  these  modem  days  when  the  human  form, 
male  and  female,  is  decorously  dissembled  and  disguised 
by  ugly  and  compHcated  garments,  they  had  been  al- 
lowed by  the  exceptional  freedom  of  the  circus  to  re- 
capture something  of  the  frank  and  innocent  delight 
of  the  Greeks  in  the  beauty  of  the  body,  in  its  beauty 
merely  as  a  body,  and  not  as  the  habitation  of  the  mind 
and  the  soul.  Alert  as  the  Greeks  were  to  admire  the 
deeds  of  the  mind — no  race  ever  more  so — they  were 
no  less  keen  in  their  appreciation  of  the  things  of  the 
body.  They  were  glad  to  crown  the  poet  for  his  lyric 
conquest,  but  they  bestowed  the  laurel  wreath  also 
on  the  athlete  who  had  won  to  the  front  in  the  race. 
The  lofty  nobility  of  their  tragedy  testifies  to  the 
clarity  of  their  intelligence;  and  the  supreme  power  of 
their  sculpture  is  evidence  of  their  loving  study  of  the 
human  body,  bearing  itself  in  beauty,  clad  in  few  and 
flowing  garments  which  allowed  the  eye  to  foUow  the 
free  play  of  the  muscles. 

It  is  only  in  the  circus  or  the  gymnasium  or  the 

208 


THE    IDEAL    OF   THE    ACROBAT 

swimming-pool  that  we  modems  are  permitted  to  be- 
hold what  was  a  daily  spectacle  to  the  Greeks;  and  it 
is  because  the  circus  preserves  for  us  this  occasional 
privilege  that  it  deserves  to  survive.  The  jocularities 
of  the  clowns,  the  intricate  evolutions  of  the  trained 
animals,  the  golden  gUtter  of  the  gorgeous  cavalcades 
— all  these  are  but  the  casual  accompaniments  of  the 
essential  privilege  of  the  circus  to  present  to  us  a  suc- 
cession of  men  and  women,  with  their  bodies  in  per- 
fect condition,  to  exhibit  to  us  that  purely  physical 
beauty  which  we  are  ever  in  danger  of  overlooking 
or  even  forgetting.  These  acrobats,  slim  and  hand- 
some, as  Huck  Finn  found  them,  in  their  "shirts  and 
drawers,"  may  display  their  daring  and  their  grace, 
standing  on  a  circling  steed  or  swinging  from  a  flying 
trapeze,  revolving  on  a  horizontal  bar  or  building 
themselves  up  into  himian  pyramids  on  the  bark  of  the 
arena;  but,  except  for  the  sake  of  variety,  the  way  in 
which  they  may  choose  to  exhibit  their  skiU  and  to  show 
themselves  is  unimportant.  What  is  important  is  that 
we  may  have  the  shifting  spectacle  of  the  human  body 
in  the  highest  condition  of  physical  efficiency,  delight- 
ing our  eyes  by  obedience  to  the  everlasting  laws  of 
beauty. 

While  the  Greeks  had  far  more  opportunities  than 
are  vouchsafed  to  us  modems  to  behold  the  human  body 
exhibiting  its  strength  and  its  skill  in  graceful  play, 
we  have  the  advantage  that  many  of  the  most  effective 
exercises  are  latter-day  inventions.  It  seems  unlikely 
that  the  Athenians  and  the  Spartans,  even  tho  they 

209 


A    BOOK   ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

were  horsemen,  had  attained  to  the  art  of  bareback 
riding;  they  may  have  bestraddled  a  saddleless  steed, 
but  they  had  not  learned  how  to  stand  on  his  back, 
and  to  tmn  somersets  in  time  with  the  stride  of  the 
horse.  It  is,  of  course,  possible  that  they  were  familiar 
with  this,  but  no  sculpture  and  no  vase-painting,  no 
anecdote  in  the  works  of  the  prose-writers,  and  no  line 
of  the  lyrists  survives  to  authorize  us  to  believe  it. 
And  it  is  fairly  certain,  also,  that  they  lacked  the  hori- 
zontal bar,  which  affords  limitless  possibilities  to  the 
adventurous  acrobat  of  our  own  times,  both  when  it 
is  erected  singly  and  when  it  is  combined  in  sets  of 
three,  either  fixed  in  the  arena  or  raised  aloft  in  the  air 
to  produce  the  appearance  of  a  remoter  ethereality. 

The  trapeze  has  a  name  of  Greek  origin,  and  it  was 
possibly  known  to  the  Greeks.  But  the  Greeks  did 
not  foresee  the  full  possibilities  of  the  trapeze,  since  its 
most  startling  utilization,  the  feat  known  as  the  Flying 
Trapeze,  was  invented  by  the  French  acrobat.  Leotard, 
only  a  little  later  than  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  The  Flying  Trapeze  is  the  ultimate  achieve- 
ment of  acrobatic  art,  and  it  demands  the  utmost  com- 
bination of  skilful  strength  and  of  easy  grace.  It  was 
a  feat  that  the  Greeks  would  have  appreciated  and  en- 
joyed, since  it  demanded  and  disclosed  the  perfection 
of  physical  courage  and  of  physical  skill.  Of  late,  the 
Flying  Trapeze  has  been  complicated  and  doubled  in 
difficulty  by  the  introduction  of  a  second  performer, 
who  at  first  makes  the  leap  simultaneously  with  his 
partner,  and  afterward  separates  from  him  and  springs 

210 


THE    IDEAL    OF    THE    ACROBAT 

thru  the  air  to  the  trapeze  which  his  associate  has  just 
abandoned,  the  pair  thus  floating  past  each  other  in 
mid-air.  In  this  more  elaborated  form  the  task  is  more 
perilous,  no  doubt,  and  far  less  easy  of  accomplishment; 
but  it  cannot  be  achieved  with  quite  the  same  grace- 
ful mastery  as  when  a  single  performer  seems  to  glide 
ethereally  from  bar  to  bar,  as  tho  it  was  impossible  for 
him  to  fall  or  to  fail  to  catch  his  almost  invisible  sup- 
port. This  graceful  mastery  was  the  most  marked 
characteristic  of  Leotard,  the  original  inventor  of  the 
Flying  Trapeze;  and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  any 
of  those  who  have  followed  the  path  he  traced  thru 
the  air,  and  who  have  vanquished  difficulties  beyond 
those  which  he  conquered,  have  been  able  to  outdo 
him  in  the  abiding  essential  of  grace. 

m 

The  overcoming  of  difficulty  is  one  of  the  elements 
of  the  pleasure  which  we  take  in  any  art,  and  part  of 
om*  enjoyment  of  a  sonnet,  for  example,  must  be 
ascribed  to  the  apparent  ease  with  which  the  poet  is 
able  to  express  his  thought,  amply  and  completely, 
within  the  rigid  limitations  of  his  fourteen  lines,  with 
their  prescribed  arrangement  of  five  or  six  rimes. 
But  our  delight  is  diminished  if  we  are  made  conscious 
of  the  effort  it  has  cost  the  artist  to  attain  his  aim. 
Many  a  later  performer  on  the  Flying  Trapeze  let  us 
see  that  the  feats  he  is  attempting  are  so  difficult  that 
they  cannot  be  accomplished  without  obvious  effort. 

211 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

That  is  to  say,  we  are  made  aware  that  the  acrobat  is 
exhibiting  a  "stunt,"  and  this  is  bad  art.  Difficulty 
overcome  is  worth  while  only  when  it  is  overcome  seem- 
ingly without  any  strain,  and  when  art  is  sufficient  to 
conceal  itself.  However  difficult  the  artist's  achieve- 
ment may  be,  its  charm  is  doubled  if  he  can  make  it 
appear  to  be  easy. 

It  happens  that  I  am  able  to  bring  his  personal  testi- 
mony to  the  fact  that  this  was  the  principle  which 
always  governed  Leotard  himself.  When  the  French 
gymnast  paid  his  only  visit  to  the  United  States,  more 
than  forty  years  ago,  he  used  to  practise  in  a  gymnasium 
which  I  also  frequented.  He  spoke  no  English,  and  I 
had  a  Httle  school-boy  French,  so  that  a  certain  in- 
timacy sprang  up.  One  day  Leotard  asked  me  to 
swing  a  trapeze  for  him,  and  he  sprang  off  and  caught 
it  with  a  single  hand,  and  then  as  the  second  trapeze 
returned  he  twisted  and  grasped  the  first  trapeze  again 
with  one  hand.  This  evoked  from  me  an  immediate 
exclamation  of  astonishment  and  admiration  at  the 
startling  conquest  of  difficulty,  and  it  was  followed  by 
the  natural  question  why  so  extraordinary  a  feat  had 
never  been  exhibited  in  public.  Leotard  explained  that 
the  leaps  from  trapeze  to  trapeze  with  the  aid  of  one 
hand  only  must  be  lopsided,  since  the  body  is  inevitably 
more  or  less  twisted,  and  he  added  that  as  there  was 
an  unavoidable  and  ungraceful  wrenching  of  the  per- 
son, he  had  determined  never  to  exhibit  this  feat  in 
public,  difficult  as  it  might  be. 

But  altho  L<5otard  was  not  willing  to  perform  in 

212 


THE    IDEAL    OF    THE    ACROBAT 

public  with  only  one  hand,  it  was  a  most  invaluable  ex- 
ercise in  private.  His  ability  to  accomplish  his  leaps 
thus  handicapped  gave  him  a  redoubled  confidence 
when  he  was  using  both  of  his  hands.  That  he  was 
right  in  resisting  the  temptation  to  startle  the  spec- 
tators by  a  "stunt"  of  surprising  difficulty  is  beyond 
question.  It  could  not  be  made  to  seem  easy,  and  it 
could  not  be  accomplished  with  grace.  Therefore  it 
was  not  fit  for  exhibition,  even  tho  Leotard  might  feel 
sure  that  he  could  do  it  without  risk  of  failure.  Here 
the  French  acrobat  revealed  himself  as  bound  by  the 
eternal  principles  which  underlie  all  the  arts,  that  of 
the  acrobat  no  less  than  those  of  the  painter  and  the 
poet.  There  is  lack  of  art  in  the  performances  of  many 
acrobats  of  remarkable  skill,  who  attempt  feats  which 
they  are  not  always  certain  of  achieving.  Indeed, 
they  are  sometimes  willing  to  profit  by  this  very  un- 
certainty. They  fail  the  first  time  of  trying,  and  even 
the  second,  and  these  failures  serve  the  purpose  of  ad- 
vertising to  the  spectators  the  difficulty  of  the  task 
they  have  undertaken.  Then  the  third  time,  or  the 
fourth,  they  succeed,  whereupon  they  reap  the  unworthy 
reward  of  applause  from  the  unthinking. 

The  artist  should  never  let  us  see  his  failures.  If  he 
is  not  certain  that  he  can  perform  what  he  promises, 
then  he  had  better  refrain  from  the  attempt.  It  was 
in  the  same  winter  that  Leotard  was  in  New  York,  in 
the  late  sixties  of  the  nineteenth  century,  that  the 
Hanlon  Brothers  paid  one  of  their  welcome  visits  to 
America.    The  Hanlons  they  were  then,  and  they 

213 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

were  acrobats  pure  and  simple,  altho  later,  when  they 
called  themselves  the  Hanlon-Lees,  they  had  become 
pantomimists.  As  acrobats  they  held  fast  to  the  same 
principles  which  governed  Leotard  in  his  performances. 
They  insisted  upon  certainty  of  execution;  they  never 
failed  to  perform  the  feat  they  set  out  to  accompHsh, 
and  to  perform  it  successfully  the  first  time  they  at- 
tempted it.  And  no  matter  how  difficult  the  feat 
might  be,  or  how  novel  or  how  effective,  if  they  could 
not  attain  absolute  certainty  of  execution,  they  re- 
frained from  setting  it  before  the  pubHc.  I  was  told 
at  the  time  that  there  were  two  or  three  surprising  and 
alluring  exercises  which  the  Hanlons  had  invented 
themselves,  which  they  practised  laboriously  and  faith- 
fully all  that  winter,  and  which  they  wisely  refrained 
from  ever  putting  on  their  program  because  they  were 
never  able  to  assure  themselves  of  a  uniformly  successful 
result.  They  could  do  any  one  of  these  feats  four 
times  out  of  five,  but  the  fifth  time  there  would  be  a 
miscalculation  of  energy,  and  the  attempt  would  have 
to  be  repeated.  And  they  were  unwilling  to  let  the 
public  witness  any  performance  of  theirs  which  was 
not  perfect  in  its  execution. 

IV 

Here  again  the  modem  acrobat,  who  is  guided  by  a 
real  feeling  for  his  art,  is  in  accord  with  the  principles 
which  the  Greeks  obeyed.  In  Attic  tragedy,  for  ex- 
ample, there  are  no  exhibitions  of  violence,  no  scuffles, 

214 


THE    IDEAL   OF   THE    ACROBAT 

and  no  assassinations,  and  this  is  not  so  much  because 
the  Greeks  shrank  from  scenes  of  blood,  as  some  critics 
have  vainly  contended,  but  rather  because  the  actors 
in  the  Attic  drama  were  raised  on  thick  boots  and  were 
topped  by  towering  masks,  which  made  it  almost  im- 
possible for  them  to  take  part  in  episodes  of  vigorous 
action,  in  hand-to-hand  struggles,  in  murders  before 
the  eyes  of  the  spectators,  without  danger  of  displacing 
the  mask,  and  thereby  distracting  the  attention  of  the 
audience  from  the  immediate  purpose  of  the  dramatic 
poet.  What  could  not  be  done  gracefully  the  Greeks 
refrained  from  attempting.  The  exhibition  of  diffi- 
culty for  the  sake  of  difficulty,  still  more  the  failure  to 
accomplish  a  "stunt"  for  the  sake  of  calling  attention 
to  its  difficulty — ^these  things  the  Greeks  abhorred. 
They  would  as  surely  have  disapproved  of  the  mis- 
guided artifices  of  the  acrobats  who  make  a  practise 
of  failing  once  or  twice  in  order  to  multiply  the  immedi- 
ate effect  of  their  ultimate  success  as  they  would  re- 
prove the  exhibition  of  a  difficulty  conquered  for  its 
own  sake.  It  is  only  in  the  best  acrobatic  perform- 
ances that  we  modems  are  privileged  to  perceive  what 
was  a  constant  delight  to  the  Greeks — ^the  beauty  of  the 
human  form,  in  its  finest  physical  perfection,  certain 
of  its  strength  and  easy  in  its  grace. 
(1912.) 


215 


xin 

THE    DECLINE  AND  FALL  OF 
NEGRO-MINSTRELSY 


THE  DECLINE  AND  FALL  OF  NEGRO-MINSTRELSY 


Of  all  the  varied  and  manifold  kinds  of  theatrical  en- 
tertainment negro-minstrelsy  is  the  only  one  which 
is  absolutely  native  to  these  States,  and  the  only  one 
which  could  not  have  come  into  existence  anywhere 
else  in  the  civihzed  world.  Here  in  America  alone  has 
the  transplanted  African  been  brought  into  intimate 
contact  with  the  transplanted  European.  Other  na- 
tions may  have  disputed  our  claim  to  the  invention  of 
the  steamboat  and  the  telegraph,  but  negro-minstrelsy 
is  as  indisputably  due  to  American  inventiveness  as  the 
telephone  itself.  Here  in  the  United  States  it  had  its 
humble  beginnings;  here  it  expanded  and  flourished 
for  many  years;  from  here  it  was  exported  to  Great 
Britain,  where  it  established  itself  for  many  seasons; 
from  here  it  has  made  sporadic  excm^ions  into  France 
and  into  Germany;  and  here  at  last  it  has  fallen  into 
a  decline  and  a  degeneracy  and  a  decay  which  seem 
to  doom  it  to  a  speedy  extinction.  Its  Hfe  was  little 
longer  than  that  vouchsafed  to  man,  threescore  years 
and  ten,  for  it  was  bom  in  the  fifth  decade  of  the  nine- 
te^th  century,  and  in  the  second  decade  of  the  twen- 
tieth it  lingers  superfluous  on  the  stage,  with  none  to 
do  it  reverence. 

219 


A   BOOK   ABOUT   THE   THEATER 

Time  was  when  the  negro  minstrels  held  possession 
of  three  or  four  theaters  in  the  single  city  of  New  York, 
and  when  a  dozen  or  more  troops  were  traveling  from 
town  to  town;  and  now  they  have  long  ago  surrendered 
their  last  hall  in  the  metropolis,  and  only  a  soHtary 
company  winds  its  lonely  way  from  theater  to  theater 
thruout  the  United  States.  The  few  surviving  prac- 
titioners of  the  art  are  reduced  to  the  presentation  of 
brief  interludes  in  the  all-devouring  variety-shows,  or 
to  the  impersonation  of  sparse  negro  characters  in 
occasional  comedies.  The  Skidmore  Guards,  who  pa- 
raded so  gaily  at  Harrigan  and  Hart's,  are  disbanded 
now  these  many  years;  Johnny  Wild  of  joyous  memory 
is  no  more,  and  Sweatnam,  bereft  of  his  fellows  in  sable 
drollery,  is  seen  only  in  a  chance  comedy  like  'Excuse 
Me,'  or  the  '  Coimty  Chairman.'  George  Christy  and 
Dan  Emmett  and  Dan  Bryant  have  gone  and  left  only 
fading  memories  of  their  breezy  songs,  their  nimble 
dances,  and  their  flippant  quips.  Edwin  Forrest  and 
Edwin  Booth  blacked  up  more  than  once,  Joseph 
Jefferson  and  Barney  WiUiams  besmeared  themselves 
with  burnt  cork  on  occasion;  but  it  is  not  by  these 
darker  episodes  in  their  artistic  careers  that  they  are 
now  recalled,  and  the  leading  actors  of  to-day  think 
scorn  of  negro-minstrelsy — ^whenever  they  deign  to 
give  it  a  thought.  And  yet  it  must  be  noted  frankly 
that  when  The  Lambs  wanted  to  raise  money  for  their 
new  club-house,  they  did  not  disdain  the  art  of  the 
negro  minstrel,  and  more  than  twoscore  of  them  went 
forth  to  conquer,  willingly  disguised  in  the  uniform 

220 


NEGRO-MINSTRELSY 

blackness  assumed  long  ago  by  George  Christy  and 
Dan  Bryant. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  some  devoted  historian  will 
come  forward  before  it  is  too  late  and  tell  us  the  his- 
tory of  this  very  special  form  of  theatrical  art,  the  only 
one  indigenous  to  our  soil.  Indeed,  now  that  our 
American  universities  are  paying  attention  to  the 
drama,  what  more  alluring  theme  for  the  dissertation 
demanded  of  all  candidates  for  the  doctorate  of  philoso- 
phy than  an  inquiry  into  the  rise  and  fall  of  negro- 
minstrelsy?  In  the  late  Laurence  Hutton's  conscien- 
tious and  entertaining  volume  on  the  '  Cimosities  of  the 
American  Stage,'  there  is  a  chapter  in  which  the  sub- 
ject is  treated  historically,  altho  the  chronicler  wasted 
much  of  his  precious  space  in  considering  the  succession 
of  sable  characters  in  the  regular  drama — Shakspere's 
Othello,  Southerners  Oroonoko,  Bickerstaff's  Mungo, 
Boucicault's  Pete  (in  the  'Octoroon'),  Uncle  Tom, 
Topsy,  Eliza,  and  their  companions  (in  the  und)dng 
dramatization  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  story).  These  were  all 
parts  in  plays  wherein  white  characters  were  prominent. 
The  first  performer  of  a  song-and-dance,  that  is  of  a 
sketch  in  which  the  darky  performer  was  sufficient 
unto  himself,  and  was  deprived  of  any  support  from 
persons  of  another  complexion,  seems  to  have  been 
"Jim  Crow"  Rice — ^the  title  of  whose  lively  lyric  sur- 
vives in  the  name  bestowed  upon  the  cars  reserved  for 
colored  folk  on  certain  Southern  railroads.  Rice  found 
his  pattern  in  an  old  negro  who  did  a  peculiar  step  after 
he  had  sung  to  a  tune  of  his  own  contriving: 

221 


A   BOOK   ABOUT   THE   THEATER 

Wheel  about,  turn  about; 

Do  jus'  so: 
An*  ebery  time  I  turn  about, 

I  jump  Jim  Crow. 

Rice  carried  Jim  Crow  to  England,  and  he  made  a 
specialty  of  dandy  darkies.  But  he  was  not  the  dis- 
coverer of  negro-minstrelsy,  as  we  know  it,  altho  he 
blazed  the  trail  for  it.  Indeed,  it  was  quite  probably 
due  to  the  influence  of  Rice  and  his  darky  dandies 
that  the  negro  minstrels  confined  their  efforts  to  the 
imitation  of  the  town  negro  rather  than  of  the  plan- 
tation negro,  the  field-hand  of  the  Uncle  Remus  type. 
Rice  first  impersonated  Jim  Crow  in  the  late  twenties, 
and  it  was  in  the  middle  of  the  thirties  that  he  went 
to  England.  And  it  was  in  the  early  forties  that  Dan 
Enmiett,  Frank  Brower,  Billy  Whitlock,  and  Dick 
Pelham  happened  to  meet  by  accident  in  a  New  York 
boarding-house,  and  amused  themselves  with  songs 
accompanied  by  the  banjo,  the  tambourine,  and  the 
bones.  Pleased  by  the  result  of  their  exercises,  they 
appeared  together  at  a  benefit,  and  negro-minstrelsy 
was  bom.  At  first  there  was  no  differentiation  into 
Interlocutors  and  End-men;  they  all  took  an  equal 
share  in  the  more  or  less  improvised  dialog;  they  sang, 
and  they  played,  and  they  danced  the  *  Essence  of 
Old  Virginny.' 

Probably  Enmiett  began  early  to  provide  new  times 
for  them.  He  was  the  composer  of  'Old  Dan  Tucker' 
and  the  'Boatman's  Dance,'  of  'Walk  Along,  John,' 
and  'Early  in  the  Morning,*  and  one  walk-around 

222 


NEGRO-MINSTRELSY 

which  he  devised  in  the  late  fifties  for  Bryant's  Min- 
strels, 'Dixie/  was  introduced  by  Mrs.  John  Wood 
into  a  burlesque,  which  she  was  playing  in  New  Or- 
leans, just  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War.  The 
sentiment  and  the  tune  took  the  fancy  of  the  ardent 
Louisianans,  and  they  carried  it  with  them  into  the 
Confederate  army,  where  it  soon  established  itself  as 
the  war-song  of  the  South.  And  then  when  Richmond 
had  fallen  at  last,  Lincoln  ordered  the  bands  of  the 
victorious  army  to  play  '  Dixie,'  with  the  wise  explana- 
tion that  as  we  had  captured  the  Southern  capital, 
we  had  also  captured  the  Southern  song.  And  'Dixie, ' 
which  had  begun  life  so  humbly  as  a  walk-around  in 
a  minstrel-show  in  New  York,  bids  fair  to  survive  in- 
definitely as  the  musical  testimony  to  the  fact  that  the 
cruel  war  is  over,  and  that  these  States  are  now  one 
nation. 


II 

It  was  only  a  year  or  two  after  the  quartet  of  Em- 
mett,  Brower.  Whitlock,  and  Pelham  had  shown  the 
possibilities  of  the  new  form  of  amusement  that  troops 
of  negro  minstrels  began  to  supply  an  entire  evening's 
amusement.  The  regulation  First  Part  was  devised 
with  its  curving  row  of  vocalists,  instrumentalists,  and 
comedians.  The  dignified  Interlocutor  took  his  place 
in  the  middle  of  the  semicircle,  and  uttered  the  time- 
honored  phrase:  "Gentlemen,  be  seated.  We  will 
commence  with  the  overture."    Bones  captured  the 

223 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

chair  at  one  end,  and  Tambo  pre-empted  that  on  the 
other;  and  they  began  their  wordy  skirmish  with  the 
Middleman,  in  which  that  pompous  presiding  officer 
always  got  the  worst  of  it.  This  device  for  immediate 
and  boisterous  laughter,  this  putting  down  of  the 
Middleman  by  the  End-man,  the  negro  minstrels  ap- 
pear to  have  borrowed  from  the  circus,  where  the 
clown  is  also  permitted  always  to  discomfit  the  stiff  and 
stately  ring-master. 

But  altho  the  minstrels  may  have  taken  over  this 
effective  trick  from  the  circus,  with  which  some  of  the 
earfier  performers  had  had  intimate  relations,  the  trick 
itself  is  of  remote  antiquity.  The  side-splitting  col- 
loquy of  the  End-man  with  the  Middleman  may  be 
exactly  like  the  interchange  of  merry  jests  between  the 
clown  and  the  ring-master,  yet  it  is  far  older  than  the 
modem  circus.  It  existed  in  Paris,  for  example,  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  when  the  quack  doctor  was  ac- 
companied by  his  jack-pudding.  Many  of  the  dialogs 
heard  on  the  Pont-Neuf  between  Mondor  and  Tabarin 
have  been  preserved,  and  the  method  is  precisely  that 
of  the  dialogs  between  ring-master  and  clown.  Inter- 
locutor and  End-man,  even  to  the  persistent  repetition 
of  the  question  which  contains  the  catch.  "Master," 
Tabarin  would  begin,  "can  you  tell  me  which  is  the 
more  generous,  a  man  or  a  woman?"  And  the  quack 
doctor  would  solemnly  reply:  "Ah,  Tabarin,  that  is  a 
question  which  has  been  greatly  debated  by  the  phi- 
losophers of  antiquity,  and  they  have  been  unable  to 
decide  which  is  truly  the  more  generous,  a  man  or  a 

224 


NEGRO-MINSTRELSY 

woman."  Then  Tabarin  would  briskly  retort:  "Never 
mind  the  old  philosophers.  I  can  tell  you."  And  with 
great  contempt  the  ponderous  quack  doctor  would 
return:  "What,  Tabarin,  do  you  mean  to  say  that  you 
can  tell  us  which  is  the  more  generous,  a  man  or  a 
woman."  Tabarin  promptly  responded  that  he  could. 
"Then,"  asked  Mondor,  "pray  do  so.  Which  is  the 
more  generous,  a  man  or  a  woman?"  And  thereupon, 
to  the  great  disgust  of  Mondor,  Tabarin  would  proffer 
his  ribald  explanation.  Unfortunately  the  explanation 
he  gave  is  frankly  too  ribald  to  be  given  here,  for  now- 
adays we  are  more  squeamish  than  the  idlers  who  gath- 
ered around  the  quack  doctor's  platform  in  Paris  three 
or  four  centuries  ago.  The  dialogs  of  Mondor  and 
Tabarin  were  brief  enough,  but  they  often  made  up  for 
their  brevity  in  their  breadth. 

This  kind  of  catch-question  was  known  in  England, 
under  EHzabeth,  as  "selling  a  bargain,"  and  it  is  not 
infrequent  in  the  plays  of  the  time.  It  will  be  found 
more  than  once  in  earHer  plays  of  Shakspere;  for  ex- 
ample, when  his  "clowns"  (as  the  low-comedy  char- 
acters were  then  called)  were  allowed  to  run  on  at  their 
own  sweet  will.  Not  a  Httle  of  the  dialog  of  the  two 
Dromios  is  closely  akin  in  its  method  to  the  interchange 
of  question  and  answer  between  the  Interlocutor  and 
the  End-man.  We  may  be  sure  this  method  of  evok- 
ing laughter  was  employed  also  by  the  improvising 
comedians  of  the  ItaHan  comedy-of-masks,  with  which 
negro-minstrelsy  has  other  points  of  resemblance.  It 
must  have  been  popular  with  the  wandering  glee-men 

225 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

of  the  rude  Middle  Ages;  and  now  that  negro-min- 
strelsy is  disappearing  and  now  that  our  circuses  have 
burgeoned  into  three  rings  under  a  tent  too  vast  for 
any  merely  verbal  repartees,  it  has  not  departed  from 
among  ns,  since  it  still  survives  as  the  staple  of  the  so- 
called  "sidewalk  conversationalists"  who  swap  per- 
sonalities in  our  superabundant  variety-shows. 

We  do  not  know  with  historic  certainty  how  soon 
the  First  Part  crystallized  into  the  form  which  has  long 
been  traditional — the  opening  overture,  the  catch- 
questioning  of  End-man  and  Middleman,  the  comic 
songs  of  Bones  and  Tambo  in  turn,  the  sentimental 
ballads  by  the  silver-throated  vocalists,  and  the  con- 
cluding walk-around.  The  rest  of  the  evening's  enter- 
tainment never  took  on  any  definite  framework,  altho 
the  final  item  on  the  program  was  likely  to  be  a  piece 
of  some  length,  often  a  burlesque  of  a  serious  drama 
then  popular,  and  this  little  play  "enlisted  the  whole 
strength  of  the  company."  Between  the  stately  First 
Part  and  the  more  pretentious  terminating  sketch,  the 
minstrels  presented  a  variety  of  acts  in  which  the  sev- 
eral members  exhibited  their  specialities.  A  clog-dance 
was  always  in  order — altho  the  mechanical  precision 
of  this  form  of  saltatorial  exercise  was  wholly  foreign 
to  the  characteristics  of  the  actual  negroes  whom  the 
minstrels  were  supposed  to  be  representing.  A  stump- 
speech  was  certain  of  a  warm  reception — altho  this 
again  departed  from  the  true  negro  tradition,  and,  in 
fact,  often  degenerated  into  frank  burlesque,  wholly 
imrelated  to  the  realities  of  life.    Sketches,  hke  those 

226 


NEGRO-MINSTRELSY 

which  Rice  had  earher  composed  for  his  own  acting, 
were  Hkely  to  have  a  little  closer  relation  to  the  genuine 
darky. 

Yet  here  again  the  negro  minstrel  was  not  avid  of 
overt  originahty.  He  was  willing  to  find  his  profit  in 
the  past  and  to  translate  into  negro  dialect  any  farce, 
however  ancient,  which  might  contain  comic  situations 
or  humorous  characters  that  could  be  twisted  to  suit 
his  immediate  purpose.  He  seized  upon  the  ingenious 
plots  of  certain  of  the  pantomimes  brought  to  America 
from  France  half  a  century  ago  by  the  Ravels.  And 
on  occasion  he  went,  unwittingly,  still  further  afield 
for  his  prey.  There  is  in  print,  in  a  collection  of  so- 
called  Ethiopian  drama,  an  amusing  sketch,  entitled 
the  'Great  Mutton  Trial';  and  the  remote  source  of 
this  is  to  be  sought  in  the  oldest  and  best  farce  which 
has  survived  in  French  Hterature.  'Maitre  Pierre 
Pathelin'  is  now  acted  occasionally  by  the  Com^die- 
Frangaise  in  Paris,  in  a  version  which  preserves  its 
original  flavor;  but  in  the  eighteenth  century  an  adap- 
tation, made  by  Brueys  and  Palaprat,  and  called  the 
'  Avocat  Pathelin,'  was  popular.  It  was  this  later  per- 
version which  served  as  the  basis  of  an  English  farce, 
entitled  the  'Village  Lawyer,'  and  the  'Great  Mutton 
Trial'  is  simply  the  'Village  Lawyer'  transmogrified  to 
suit  the  bolder  and  more  robust  methods  of  the  negro 
minstrels. 


227 


A   BOOK   ABOUT   THE   THEATER 


m 

And  here  we  may  discover  the  real  reason  why  negro- 
minstrelsy  failed  to  establish  itself.  It  neglected  its 
opportunity  to  devote  itself  primarily  to  its  own  pecu- 
liar field — ^the  humorous  reproduction  of  the  sayings 
and  doings  of  the  colored  man  in  the  United  States. 
To  represent  the  negro  in  his  comic  aspects  and  in  his 
sentimental  moods  was  what  the  minstrels  pretended 
to  do;  but  the  pretense  was  often  only  a  hollow  mock- 
ery. Even  the  musical  instruments  they  affected,  the 
banjo  and  the  bones,  were  not  as  characteristic  of  the 
field-hand,  or  even  of  the  town  darky,  as  the  violin. 
Indeed,  the  bones  cannot  be  considered  as  in  any  way 
special  to  the  negro;  they  were  familiar  to  Shakspere's 
Bottom,  who  declared:  "I  have  a  reasonable  good  ear 
in  music;  let  us  have  the  tongs  and  the  bones."  And 
the  wise  recorder  of  the  words  and  deeds  of  Uncle 
Remus  asserted  that  he  had  never  listened  to  the 
staccato  picking  of  a  banjo  in  the  negro-quarters  of 
any  plantation. 

"I  have  seen  the  negro  at  work,"  so  Harris  once 
stated,  "and  I  have  seen  him  at  play;  I  have  attended 
his  com-shuckings,  his  dances,  and  his  frolics;  I  have 
heard  him  give  the  wonderful  melody  of  his  songs  to 
the  winds;  I  have  heard  him  give  barbaric  airs  to  the 
quills"  (that  is  to  say,  to  the  Pan-pipes) ;  "  I  have  heard 
him  scrape  jubilantly  on  the  fiddle;  I  have  seen  him 
blow  wildly  on  the  bugle,  and  beat  enthusiastically  on 

228 


NEGRO-MINSTRELSY 

the  triangle;  but  I  have  never  heard  him  play  on  the 
banjo."  Mr.  George  W.  Cable  thereupon  came  for- 
ward with  his  evidence  to  the  effect  that,  altho  the 
banjo  was  to  be  found  occasionally  on  a  plantation, 
it  was  far  less  frequently  seen  than  the  violin.  It  will 
be  noted  that  Harris  was  speaking  of  the  Georgian 
negro,  and  that  Mr.  Cable  was  talking  about  the  negro 
in  Louisiana;  and  perhaps  the  true  habitat  of  the  banjo 
is  to  be  found  farther  north  and  near  to  the  border 
States.  At  any  rate,  there  is  a  footnote  to  one  of 
Thomas  Jefferson's  'Notes  on  Virginia'  (published  in 
1784),  which  informs  us  that  the  instrument  proper  to 
the  slaves  of  the  Old  Dominion  is  "the  ban  jar,  which 
they  brought  hither  from  Africa,  and  which  is  the  origin 
of  the  guitar,  its  chords  being  precisely  the  four  lower 
chords  of  the  guitar." 

Now  and  again  some  one  negro  minstrel  did  make  a 
serious  study  of  a  negro  type;  such  a  performer  was 
J.  W.  McAndrews,  the  "Watermelon  Man."  But  the 
most  of  them  were  content  to  be  comic  without  any 
effort  to  catch  the  special  comicality  of  the  darky;  and 
sometimes  they  strayed  so  completely  from  the  path 
as  to  indulge  in  songs  in  an  alleged  Irish  brogue  or  in 
a  dislocated  German  dialect.  Now,  nothing  could 
well  be  conceived  more  incongruously  inartistic  than 
a  white  man  blacked  up  into  the  semblance  of  a  ne- 
gro, and  then  impertinently  caroling  an  impudent  Irish 
lyric.  Yet  the  general  neglect  of  the  opportunities 
for  a  more  accurate  presentation  of  negro  character- 
istics is  to  be  seen  in  the  strange  fact  that  the  minstrels 

229 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

failed  to  perceive  the  possible  popularity  of  rag-time 
tunes,  and  failed  also  to  put  the  cake-walk  on  the 
stage.  Even  at  the  height  of  its  vogue  in  the  mid  years 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  negro-minstrelsy  did  not 
occupy  its  own  field,  and  did  not  try  to  raise  therein 
the  varied  flowers  of  which  they  had  the  seed. 

Instead  of  cultivating  the  tempting  possibihties 
which  lay  before  them,  and  devoting  themselves  to  a 
loving  delineation  of  the  colored  people  who  make  up 
a  tenth  of  our  population,  they  turned  aside  to  devote 
themselves  to  the  spectacular  elaboration  of  their  orig- 
inal entertainment.  The  clog-dances  became  most  in- 
tricate and  more  mechanical — and  thereby  still  more 
remote  from  the  buck-and-wing  dancing  of  the  real 
negro.  The  First  Part  was  presented  with  accompani- 
ments of  Oriental  magnificence  and  of  variegated 
glitter.  The  chorus  was  enlarged;  the  musicians  were 
multiplied;  the  End-men  operated  in  relays;  and  at 
last  the  bass-drum  which  towered  aloft  over  Haverly's 
Mastodon  Minstrels  bore  the  boastful  legend:  "40. 
Count  Them.  40."  And  when  the  suspicious  spec- 
tator obeyed  this  command,  he  discovered  to  his  sur- 
prise that  the  vaunt  was  more  than  made  good  since 
he  had  a  full  view  of  at  least  half  a  dozen  performers 
in  addition  to  the  promised  twoscore. 

At  the  apex  of  his  inflated  prosperity  Haverly  in- 
vaded Germany  with  his  mastodonic  organization; 
and  one  result  of  his  visit  was  probably  still  further  to 
confuse  the  Teutonic  misinformation  about  the  Amer- 
can  type,  which  seems  often  to  be  a  curious  composite 

230 


NEGRO-MINSTRELSY 

photograph  of  the  red  men  of  Cooper,  the  black  men 
of  Mrs.  Stowe,  and  the  white  men  of  Mark  Twain  and 
Bret  Harte.  And  it  was  reported  at  the  time  that 
another  and  more  immediate  result  of  this  rash  foray 
beyond  the  bomidaries  of  the  EngHsh-speaking  race 
was  that  Haverly  was,  for  a  while,  in  danger  of  arrest 
by  the  poUce  for  a  fraudulent  attempt  to  deceive  the 
German  pubhc,  because  he  was  pretending  to  present 
a  company  of  negro  minstrels,  whereas  his  performers 
were  actually  white  men ! 

It  should  be  recorded  that  while  the  vogue  lasted, 
there  did  come  into  existence  simdry  troops  of  minstrels 
whose  members  were  all  of  them  actually  colored  men, 
altho  they  conformed  to  the  convention  set  by  those 
whom  they  were  imitating  and  conscientiously  dis- 
guised themselves  with  burnt  cork,  to  achieve  the  sable 
uniformity  temporarily  attained  by  the  ordinary  negro 
minstrels.  Perhaps  the  most  obvious  parallel  of  the 
blacking  up  of  veritable  colored  men  to  follow  the 
example  of  the  white  men  who  pretended  to  imitate 
the  negro  is  to  be  found  in  the  original  performance  of 
'As  You  Like  It,*  on  the  EHzabethan  stage,  when  the 
shaven  boy-actor  who  impersonated  Rosalind  dis- 
guised himself  as  a  lad,  and  then  had  to  pretend  to 
Orlando  that  he  was  a  girl. 


231 


A  BOOK  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 


IV 

For  the  decline  and  f  aU  of  negro-minstrelsy  it  is  easy 
to  find  more  than  one  sufficient  explanation.  First  of 
all,  it  may  have  been  due  to  its  failure  to  devote  itself 
lovingly  to  the  representation  of  the  many  peculiarities 
of  the  negro  himself.  Second,  it  is  possible  that  negro- 
minstrelsy  had  an  inherent  and  inevitable  disqualifica- 
tion for  enduring  popularity,  in  that  it  was  exclusively 
masculine  and  necessarily  deprived  of  the  potent  at- 
tractiveness exerted  by  the  members  of  the  more  fas- 
cinating sex.  And  in  the  third  place,  its  program  was 
rather  limited  and  monotonous,  and  therefore  negro- 
minstrelsy  could  not  long  withstand  the  competition  of 
the  music-hall,  of  the  variety-show,  and  of  the  comic 
musical  pieces,  which  satisfied  more  amply  the  exactly 
similar  taste  of  the  pubHc  for  broad  fun  commingled 
with  song  and  dance. 

Whatever  the  precise  cause  may  be,  there  is  no  deny- 
ing that  negro-minstrelsy  is  on  the  verge  of  extinction, 
however  much  we  may  bewail  the  fact.  It  failed  to 
accomplish  its  true  pmpose,  and  it  is  disappearing, 
leaving  behind  it  httle  that  is  worthy  of  preservation 
except  a  few  of  its  songs.  This,  at  least,  it  has  to  its 
credit — that  it  gave  Stephen  Collins  Foster  the  chance 
to  produce  his  simple  melodies.  Perhaps  we  might 
even  venture  to  assert  that  the  existence  of  negro- 
minstrelsy  is  justified  by  a  single  one  of  these  songs — 
by  'Old  Folks  at  Home,'  which  has  a  wailing  melan- 

232 


NEGRO-MINSTRELSY 

choly  and  an  unaffected  pathos,  lacking  in  the  earher 
and  more  saccharine  'Home,  Sweet  Home/  which  the 
English  composer,  Bishop,  based  on  an  old  SiciHan 
tune.  After  Foster  came  Root  and  Work,  and  'My 
Old  Kentucky  Home'  was  succeeded  by  *  Tramp, 
Tramp,  Tramp,  the  Boys  Are  Marching,'  and  by 
'Marching  thru  Georgia' — ^which  last  lyric  now  shares 
its  popularity  only  with  'Dixie'  as  a  musical  relic  of 
the  Civfl  War. 

It  would  be  pleasant  to  know  whether  it  was  one  of 
Foster's  songs,  and  which  one  it  may  have  been  that 
once  touched  the  tender  heart  of  Thackeray.  "  I  heard 
a  humorous  balladist  not  long  since,"  the  novelist  re- 
corded, "a  minstrel  with  wool  on  his  head,  and  an  ultra 
Ethiopian  complexion,  who  performed  a  negro  ballad 
that  I  confess  moistened  these  spectacles  in  a  most 
unexpected  manner.  They  have  gazed  at  dozens  of 
tragedy-queens  dying  on  the  stage  and  expiring  in 
appropriate  blank  verse,  and  I  never  wanted  to  wipe 
them.  They  have  looked  up,  with  deep  respect  be  it 
said,  at  many  scores  of  clergymen  without  being 
dimmed,  and  behold !  a  vagabond  with  a  corked  face 
and  a  banjo,  sings  a  Httle  song,  strikes  a  wild  note, 
which  sets  the  heart  thrilling  with  happy  pity." 

(1912.) 


233 


XIV 
THE  UTILITY  OF  THE  VARIETY-SHOW 


THE  UTILITY  OP  THE  VARIETY-SHOW 


In  an  advertisement  issued  by  one  of  the  huge  depart- 
ment stores  of  New  York  not  long  ago,  the  assertion 
was  made  that  the  house  had  on  sale  "all  the  new 
novelties."  A  purist  in  language  might  be  moved  to 
protest  that  this  proclamation  was  plainly  tautological, 
because  it  is  the  essential  quality  of  every  novelty  to 
be  new.  But  even  a  purist  in  language,  if  he  happens 
also  to  be  an  honest  observer  of  things  as  they  are, 
would  be  forced  to  admit  that  his  supercilious  cavil 
had  only  a  superficial  justification,  since,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  there  are  many  novelties  which  are  not  new, 
and  which,  indeed,  are  venerably  ancient.  It  was 
Solomon,  superabundantly  married,  and  therefore  in 
an  excellent  position  to  acquire  wisdom,  who  declared 
that  there  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun.  Wireless 
telegraphy  is  only  a  development  of  the  signaling  by 
beacon-fires,  which  was  practised  by  the  Greeks  and 
which  they  employed  to  convey  immediately  to  Greece 
the  glad  tidings  of  the  fall  of  Troy ;  and  moving-pictures 
are  only  an  ingenious  amplification  of  the  zoetrope  of 
our  childhood. 

The  amusement-parks  which  sprang  up  all  over  the 
United  States  in  the  early  part  of  the  twentieth  cen- 

237 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

tury,  in  imitation  of  those  at  Coney  Island,  bear  an 
undeniable  resemblance  to  the  Foire  Saint  Laurent 
and  to  the  other  fairs  of  Paris  in  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries,  and  even  the  loud-voiced  crier 
who  proclaims  the  merits  of  the  several  side-shows, 
and  who  is  now  known  as  a  "barker,"  bears  a  name 
which  is  only  a  translation  of  that  given  to  his  forbears 
two  hundred  years  ago  in  France — aboyeur. 

The  so-called  cabaret-shows,  prevalent  in  the  larger 
cities  of  the  United  States  in  the  winter  of  1911-1912, 
were  hailed  as  the  very  latest  form  of  amusement, 
combining  as  they  did  the  solid  pleasures  of  the  table 
with  the  ethereal  dehghts  of  song-and-dance;  and  yet 
Froissart  is  a  witness  that  something  very  like  the 
cabaret-show  was  known  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
Gibbon  has  recorded  its  existence  nearly  a  thousand 
years  earher,  at  the  court  of  Theodoric.  Indeed,  the 
Romans,  and  the  Greeks  before  them,  had  employed 
performers  of  one  sort  or  another  to  relieve  the  mo- 
notony of  their  banquets.  Gaditanian  dancers  were 
popular  thruout  the  wide  realm  of  Rome,  almost  two 
thousand  years  before  Carmencita  came  from  Cadiz 
to  warble  and  caper  at  midnight  in  the  studios  of 
American  painters,  just  before  and  just  after  the  guests 
had  enjoyed  the  refreshments  provided  by  their  artistic 
hosts. 

As  the  cabaret-show  is  only  another  form  of  the  well- 
known  "vaudeville  supper,"  it  must  be  relegated  to 
the  class  of  novelties  which  are  not  new.  And  vaude- 
ville itself  is  only  the  long  familiar  variety-show.    It 

238 


THE    VARIETY-SHOW 

may  now  be  called  by  a  new  name,  and  many  of  those 
who  do  not  look  behind  a  label  may  accept  it  as  a  new 
thing;  nevertheless  it  is  very  old,  indeed.  The  name 
"vaudeville"  is  an  absurd  misnomer,  like  so  many 
other  terms  due  to  our  habit  of  careless  borrowing  from 
other  tongues.  In  French  vaudeville  originally  desig- 
nated a  kind  of  topical  song,  bristling  with  pointed 
gibes  at  the  follies  of  the  moment;  and  then  in  time  it 
took  on  another  meaning,  when  it  was  used  to  describe 
a  light  and  lively  farce  interspersed  with  occasional 
lyrics  set  to  old-fashioned  tunes.  It  is  impossible  to 
say  just  how  and  why  this  French  word,  which  had 
two  distinct  meanings  in  its  own  language,  should  have 
been  imported  into  EngHsh  to  characterize  improperly 
a  form  of  amusement  which  we  had  long  known  by  the 
admirably  exact  name  of  variety-show.  The  French 
themselves  call  their  own  type  of  variety-show,  at 
which  refreshments  are  served,  a  caf6-concert.  Their 
nickname  for  it  is  a  heuglant,  a  place  where  there  is 
"howling" — ^which  seems  to  imply  that  they  do  not 
expect  too  much  melody  from  the  singers,  who  appear 
at  these  performances.  In  England  an  establishment 
of  this  kind  is  called  a  music-hall ;  and  it  was  more  than 
half  a  century  ago  that  Planche  described  their  blatant 
lyrics  set  to  brazen  tunes  as  "most  music-haU,  most 
melancholy." 

Whatever  its  name  may  be  in  the  different  parts  of 
the  world,  the  entertainment  is  much  the  same.  The 
most  frequent  item  on  the  program  is  the  comic  song, 
often  accompanied  by  a  rudimentary  dance.    Some- 

239 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

times  it  is  in  the  martial  staccato  of  Paulus's  *En  reve- 
nant  de  la  r4vue'  which  boosted  General  Boulanger 
into  a  fm-ious  but  fleeting  political  popularity.  Some- 
times it  is  the  coonful  melody  of  'Under  the  Bamboo 
Tree'  or  'Dinah,  the  Moon  am  Shining.'  Sometimes  it 
is  an  almost  epileptic  lyric,  like '  Tarara-boom-de-ay.' 
Sometimes  a  singer  of  a  more  delicate  art,  like  Yvette 
Guilbert,  ventures  upon  songs  of  a  more  subtly  senti- 
mental appeal.  There  may  be  a  swift  succession  of 
solos,  male  singers  and  female  alternating,  those  of  the 
most  fame  appearing  latest,  as  is  the  practise  in  the 
first  part  of  the  Parisian  open-air  cafe-chantant,  the 
Alcazar  or  the  Ambassadeurs.  There  may  be  duets 
or  trios  or  quartets,  serious  or  comic,  decorously  im- 
adomed  or  diversified  by  dancing.  There  may  be 
songs  to  be  interpreted  by  half  a  dozen  performers, 
accompanied  by  more  or  less  dramatic  action,  like  the 
'Mulligan  Guards,'  which  was  the  simple  germ  where- 
from  sprouted  the  long  series  of  more  and  more  elab- 
orate Harrigan  and  Hart  plays,  delineating  with  keen 
insight  and  with  sympathetic  humor  the  manifold 
aspects  of  tenement-house  life  in  New  York,  and  pos- 
sessing a  rich  flavor  of  fun  curiously  akin  to  that  which 
amuses  us  in  the  plays  wherein  Plautus  had  sketched 
the  tenement-house  life  in  Rome  two  thousand  years 
ago. 

While  the  song  and  the  song-and-dance  and  the 
song-and-parade  may  be  the  staple  of  the  entertain- 
ment, the  variety-show  justifies  its  name  by  the  med- 
ley of  other  exhibitions  it  presents.    It  delights  in  the 

240 


THE    VARIETY-SHOW 

dance  unaccompanied  by  the  song;  and  in  some  of  the 
English  music-halls,  the  Alhambra  and  the  Empire  in 
London,  the  ballet  is  the  foremost  attraction,  providing 
an  opportunity  for  the  display  of  her  dainty  art  to  so 
exquisite  a  dancer  as  Mile.  Gen^e.  In  New  York  it 
is  now  a  refuge  for  the  waifs  and  strays  of  vanishing 
negro-minstrelsy.  It  is  ready  to  welcome  the  wander- 
ing conjurer  and  the  strolling  juggler.  It  extends  its 
hospitaHty  to  the  acrobat,  single  or  in  groups,  throwing 
flipflaps  on  the  stage,  flying  thru  the  air  on  a  trapeze 
or  diving  into  the  water  in  a  tank.  It  acts  as  host  to 
the  trainer  of  performing  animals,  dogs  and  cats,  seals 
and  elephants.  It  lends  its  stage  to  the  puppet-show 
performer,  to  the  sidewalk  conversationalist,  and  to 
the  ventriloquist,  with  his  pair  of  stoHd  figures  seem- 
ingly seated  uncomfortably  on  his  knees  and  actually 
supported  by  his  hands,  while  his  adroit  fingers  manip- 
ulate their  mechanical  mouths. 

Of  late,  the  variety-show  has  accepted  the  aid  of  the 
exhibitors  of  moving-pictures,  just  as  the  exhibitors 
of  moving-pictures  have  invoked  the  casual  assistance 
of  song-and-dance  teams  and  of  other  vaudeville  per- 
formers to  relieve  the  strain  on  the  eyes  of  their  spec- 
tators. And  the  introduction  of  the  cinematograph, 
or  the  bioscope,  or  whatever  it  may  be  called,  is,  per- 
haps, the  only  real  novelty  in  our  latter-day  variety- 
show.  All  the  other  performers  are  presenting  feats 
of  a  kind  known  to  our  remote  ancestors,  even  if  these 
feats  are  now  more  skilfully  presented.  Animals  were 
put  thru  their  paces  hundreds  of  years  ago;  and  per- 

241 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

forming  dogs  and  educated  bears  figure  frequently  in 
the  illuminations  which  decorate  many  a  medieval 
manuscript.  There  were  tight-rope  dancers  in  Alex- 
andria and  in  Byzantiimi;  there  were  contortionists  in 
Rome  and  in  Greece,  and  the  flexibility  of  these  latter 
is  preserved  for  us  in  the  vase-paintings  which  have 
been  replevined  from  the  ashes  of  Pompeii  and  the 
lava  of  Herculaneum.  Quintilhan  tells  us  of  the  won- 
derful feats  of  certain  performers  on  the  stage  in  his 
day,  "with  balls,  and  of  other  jugglers  whose  dexterity 
is  such  that  one  might  suppose  the  things  which  they 
throw  from  them  to  retrnn  of  their  own  accord,  and  to 
fly  wheresoever  they  are  commanded."  The  art  of 
modem  magic  has  enlarged  its  boundaries  by  the  aid 
of  the  modem  sciences  of  mechanics  and  physics,  but 
elementary  sleights-of-hand  were  known  to  a  remote 
antiquity,  and  savages  always  had  their  medicine-men 
and  their  marabouts,  workers  of  primitive  wonders  to 
strike  awe  into  the  souls  of  their  unsophisticated  be- 
holders. The  variety-show  may  have  the  variety  it 
vaimts  itself  as  possessing;  but  to  novelty  it  can  lay 
little  claim. 


n 

The  constituent  elements  of  the  variety-show  as  we 
know  it  to-day  have  existed  since  a  time  whereof  the 
memory  of  man  mnneth  not  to  the  contrary — to  use 
the  old  legal  phrase.  The  appeal  of  almost  every  one 
of  these  elements  and  of  the  variety-show  as  a  whole 

242 


THE    VARIETY-SHOW 

is  ever  to  the  eye  and  to  the  ear,  to  the  senses  rather 
than  to  the  emotions;  and  to  the  intellect  it  appeals 
even  more  infrequently.  Its  primary  pmpose  is  to 
afford  a  kaleidoscopic  succession  of  contrasted  amuse- 
ments for  the  benefit  of  those  who  are  easily  satisfied 
by  glitter  of  spectacle,  by  incessant  movement,  and  by 
violent  music.  It  is  the  ideal  entertainment  for  that 
redoubtable  entity,  the  Tired  Business  Man,  who 
checks  his  brains  with  his  overcoat,  and  who  resents 
having  to  witness  anything  in  the  theater  which  might 
make  him  think.  Not  only  does  the  variety-show 
flourish  because  it  is  exactly  adjusted  to  the  imintellec- 
tual  and  purely  sensational  likings  of  the  Tired  Busi- 
ness Man  and  to  the  similar  tastes  of  his  fit  mate,  who 
is  fatigued  because  her  life  is  idle  and  empty,  but  for 
his  benefit  also,  and  for  hers  the  smnmer  song-show 
and  the  alleged  "comic  opera"  and  the  misnamed 
"review"  have  been  called  into  existence.  Indeed,  it 
is  obvious  enough  that  most  of  our  summer  song-shows 
and  many  of  our  "comic  operas"  and  "reviews"  are, 
in  reality,  only  more  or  less  disguised  variety-shows. 

With  facts  as  they  are,  there  is  never  any  excuse  for 
quarreling.  The  Tired  Business  Man  is  a  fact;  and  it 
is  only  fair  that  what  he  demands  shall  be  supplied  by 
caterers  to  the  cravings  of  the  populace.  But  even 
tho  his  name  is  legion,  the  Tired  Business  Man  is  to 
be  accepted  only  with  contemptuous  toleration.  He 
is  to  be  endured  only  so  long  as  he  does  not  insist  on 
imposing  his  likings  upon  others  who  have  a  more 
delicate  perception;  and  who  are  willing  to  bring  their 

243 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

brains  with  them  when  they  take  their  places  in  the 
theater.  Even  in  the  variety-show  which  seems  often 
to  exist  only  for  the  pleasure  of  those  who  still  linger 
in  what  one  of  George  EHot's  wise  characters  aptly 
called  "a  puerile  state  of  culture,"  nevertheless,  we 
can  now  and  again  discover  signs  of  a  longing  for  some- 
thing less  void  of  purpose  than  mere  spectacle.  For 
example,  it  was  in  a  variety-show  that  Mr.  Belasco's 
finely  imaginative  dramatization  of  Mr.  Long's  'Ma- 
dame Butterfly'  was  set  before  the  American  public 
several  years  prior  to  its  being  adorned  by  the  pathetic 
music  of  Puccini  for  the  benefit  of  opera-goers. 

In  fact,  it  is  well  to  remember  that  the  op6ra  comique 
of  the  French  had  its  humble  origin  in  the  theater  of 
the  Parisian  fairs,  where  also  we  can  discover  the  rude 
beginnings  of  that  crude  form  of  melodrama  which 
Victor  Hugo  lifted  into  literature  in  'Hemani'  and 
*Ruy  Bias,'  casting  the  cloth-of-gold  of  his  splendid 
lyricism  over  the  arbitrarily  articulated  skeleton  of 
his  violent  action.  It  was  an  old  negro-minstrel  act, 
representing  the  rehearsal  of  an  amateur  band,  that 
the  Hanlon-Lees  borrowed  to  amplify  into  a  rough- 
and-tiunble  pantomime  for  performance  in  a  variety- 
show  in  Paris;  and  this  knockabout  sketch  proved  to 
be  the  stepping-stone  which  enabled  them  soon  to 
achieve  the  fantastic  eccentricity  of  their  'Voyage  en 
Suisse,'  performed  in  real  theaters,  first  in  Paris  and 
then  in  New  York,  to  the  joy  of  all  who  could  appreciate 
the  perfection  of  their  art  as  pantomimists.  And, 
once  again,  it  was  in  a  variety-show  of  the  lowest  class 

241 


THE    VARIETY-SHOW 

that  Denman  Thompson  first  appeared  as  'Josh  Whit- 
comb  Among  the  Female  Bathers/  a  vulgar  episode 
of  indehcate  humor,  wherein,  however,  was  contained 
the  germ  of  that  perennially  popular  play,  the  'Old 
Homestead,'  which  gave  a  pure  pleasure  to  countless 
thousands  of  theater-goers,  season  after  season,  for  at 
least  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

When  we  look  back  over  the  long  annals  of  the 
variety-show  we  cannot  escape  the  conclusion  that 
here  is  its  real  opportunity,  its  true  function,  and  its 
necessary  justification.  For  the  most  part,  it  supplies 
a  purely  sensational  amusement  for  the  unthinking; 
and  yet  it  is  continually  serving  as  a  nursery  for  the 
actual  theater.  It  is  thus  seen  to  be  a  proving  ground 
for  the  seeds  of  widely  different  dramatic  species — 
op6ra  comique  and  melodrama  iq  France,  the  ballet 
d' action  in  England,  the  rural  play  in  the  United  States. 
It  is  not  always  conscious  of  its  possibihties,  nor  does 
it  always  improve  them  to  best  advantage.  Normally 
it  provides  an  entertainment  appealing  mainly  to  the 
senses,  often  empty,  and  often  unsatisfying  because  of 
its  monotony.  But  on  occasion  it  is  capable  of  grasp- 
ing at  higher  things,  and  of  encouraging  artists  who  will 
sooner  or  later  outgrow  its  limitations  and  transfer 
their  activities  to  the  theaters  wherein  audiences  are 
more  eager  for  veracity  of  character  portrayal. 


245 


A   BOOK   ABOUT   THE    THEATER 


III 

On  one  side  the  variety-show  intersects  the  ring  of 
the  circus  and  the  curving  line  of  the  First  Part  of 
negro-minstrelsy,  while  on  the  other  it  impinges  on  the 
sphere  of  the  more  literary  drama.  Its  existence  is 
evidence  that  the  show  business  is  always  the  show 
business,  no  matter  how  manifold  and  dissimilar  its 
manifestations  may  seem  to  be.  The  men  and  women 
who  have  grown  up  in  the  regular  theaters  are  a  little 
inclined  to  be  scornfully  jealous  of  the  less  highly 
esteemed  performers  in  the  variety-show,  even  if  they 
themselves  are  occasionally  tempted  by  the  lure  of 
high  pay  for  hard  work  to  condescend  to  vaudeville 
engagements.  No  doubt,  the  bill  of  fare  set  before  us 
more  often  than  not  in  the  variety-show  justifies  this 
attitude  on  the  part  of  the  high  priests  of  the  more 
legitimate  drama;  yet  they  ought  to  be  broad-minded 
enough  to  recognize  merit  wherever  it  may  be  found. 
The  late  John  Gilbert,  best  of  Sir  Peter  Teazles,  and 
of  Sir  Anthony  Absolutes,  was  not  a  Httle  provoked 
by  the  praise  bestowed  upon  Harrigan  and  Hart  and 
their  associates  by  Mr.  Howells  and  by  other  critics 
of  the  acted  drama,  who  relished  the  peculiar  flavor 
of  'Squatter  Sovereignty'  and  its  companion  plays. 
Gilbert  was  puzzled  to  discover  any  reason  why  any 
criticism  whould  be  wasted  on  pieces  which  pretended 
to  be  little  more  than  variety-show  sketches.  But 
Joseph  Jefferson,  a  far  more  versatile  comedian  than 

246 


THE    VARIETY-SHOW 

John  Gilbert,  was  swift  to  discern  merit;  and  he  was 
wholly  free  from  toplofty  condescension  toward  other 
forms  of  the  histrionic  art  than  that  in  which  he  was 
himself  pre-eminent — ^perhaps,  because  in  his  youth 
he  had  often  appeared  as  a  burlesque  actor,  an  experi- 
ence which  he  gladly  admitted  to  have  been  very  valu- 
able to  him.  After  Jefferson  had  gone  to  see  one  of 
the  nondescript  pieces  at  Weber  and  Fields's  music-hall, 
joyous  spectacles  commingled  of  song  and  dance,  of 
eccentric  character  and  of  sheer  fun,  he  was  loud  in 
his  praise  of  the  histrionic  art  displayed  here  and  there 
in  the  course  of  the  performance,  declaring  without 
hesitation  that  one  episode,  in  which  the  two  managers 
took  part,  was  simply  the  finest  piece  of  comic  acting 
he  had  seen  that  whole  winter.  Probably  the  ordinary 
playgoers,  who  had  flocked  to  be  amused  by  this  loose- 
jointed  piece,  took  a  somewhat  apologetic  attitude 
toward  the  pleasure  they  had  received;  and  probably 
they  supposed  that  their  pleasure  at  the  entertainment 
offered  to  them  was  due  mainly  to  the  pervading  bus- 
tle and  dazzle  of  the  kaleidoscopic  show.  But  Jeffer- 
son had  a  keener  insight  into  the  practise  of  the  art 
he  adorned;  and  he  recognized  at  once  the  sheer  his- 
trionic skill  which  lent  the  illusion  of  life  to  the  fan- 
tastic impossibihty  of  the  humorous  situation. 

Jefferson,  one  may  ventm^e  to  assert,  would  not  have 
been  surprised  if  he  had  learned  that  an  American 
university  professor  of  dramatic  Hterature,  whenever 
he  came  to  discuss  the  lyrical-burlesques  of  Aristoph- 
anes, was  in  the  habit  of  sending  his  whole  class  to 

247 


A   BOOK   ABOUT   THE   THEATER 

Weber  and  Fields  that  his  students  might  see  for  them- 
selves the  nearest  modem  analog  to  the  robust  fantasies 
of  the  great  Greek  humorist.  Aristophanes  was  a 
many-sided  genius;  as  a  lyric  poet  of  ethereal  elevation 
he  must  be  set  by  the  side  of  Shelley;  as  a  keen  satirist 
of  contemporary  fads  and  foibles  he  must  be  compared 
with  Rabelais;  and  as  a  fun-maker  pure  and  simple, 
as  a  comic  playwright,  williag  and  able  to  evoke  un- 
expected laughter  by  ludicrous  antics,  he  reveals  an 
undeniable  likeness  to  the  adroit  devisers  of  the  hodge- 
podge of  humorous  episodes  represented  with  contagious 
humor  by  Weber  and  Fields.  And  the  heterogeneous 
pieces  which  used  to  be  produced  by  the  two  per- 
formers who  devote  themselves  to  the  dislocation  of 
the^English  language  were  outgrowths  of  the  variety- 
show,  from  which,  indeed,  the  two  performers  them- 
selves were  graduates. 

It  is  this  aspect  of  the  variety-show,  its  supplying  of 
opportunities  for  artistic  development  to  ambitious 
performers,  and  its  own  spontaneous  generation  of  dra- 
matic forms  capable  of  being  lifted  into  literature — 
it  is  this  aspect  of  the  variety-show  which  would  be 
emphasized  by  any  competent  writer  undertaking  to 
narrate  its  long  and  involved  history.  That  no  one 
has  yet  written  a  history  of  the  variety-show  is  as  sur- 
prising as  that  no  one  has  yet  written  a  history  of 
negro-minstrelsy.  The  materials  for  such  a  book  are 
accessible  and  abundant,  since  there  are  already  richly 
documented  accounts  of  the  fairs  of  Paris  and  of 
London,  in  which  the  variety-show  flourished  centuries 

248 


THE    VARIETY-SHOW 

ago.  There  are  accounts  of  the  English  concert-halls 
as  they  now  exist  and  of  the  French  cafe-concerts.  The 
historian  will  also  be  aided  by  the  various  treatises  on 
the  ballet;  and  on  the  circus,  and  on  the  puppet-show, 
with  all  of  which  forms  of  entertainment  the  variety- 
show  has  always  had  intimate  relations. 

It  may  be  that  the  future  historian  will  be  moved 
to  point  out  the  superficial  likeness  between  the  variety- 
show  and  the  Sunday  issues  of  certain  American  news- 
papers. These  Simday  newspapers  are  really  maga- 
zines— ^that  is  to  say,  they  occupy  a  position  midway 
between  journalism  and  literature,  just  as  the  variety- 
show  occupies  a  position  midway  between  the  circus 
and  the  theater.  The  magazine  pages  of  these  Sunday 
newspapers  set  before  their  readers  a  very  variegated 
bill  of  fare;  they  provide  photographs  of  recent  events 
— which  are  the  equivalent  of  the  moving-pictures  of 
the  variety-show;  they  contain  short-stories — ^which 
are,  in  narrative,  what  the  brief  plays  of  the  variety- 
show  are  in  dialog  and  action;  they  abound  in  anec- 
dotes and  in  comic  sayings — ^which  are  closely  akin  to 
the  utterances  of  the  sidewalk  conversationalists  of  the 
variety-show.  And  the  variety-show  itself  is  like 
journalism,  in  that  it  is  a  modem  combination  of  ele- 
ments of  the  remotest  antiquity,  for  altho  the  actual 
newspaper  is  only  two  or  three  centuries  old,  there 
were  always  channels  by  which  news  was  conveyed  to 
the  eager  public.  The  men  of  Athens  nearly  two  thou- 
sand years  ago  were  glad  to  hear  and  to  tell  some  new 
thing,  and  their  wants  were  suppHed,  even  if  there  was 

249 


A   BOOK   ABOUT   THE   THEATER 

in  classical  antiquity  and  in  the  Middle  Ages  no  organ- 
ization faintly  anticipating  the  marvelous  machinery 
for  collecting  and  distributing  information  possessed 
by  the  newspapers  of  the  twentieth  century. 

(1912.) 


250 


XV 
THE  METHOD  OF  MODERN  MAGIC 


THE  METHOD  OF  MODERN  MAGIC 


AuTOBiOGKAPHY,  said  Longfellow — altho  the  remark 
does  not  seem  especially  characteristic  of  this  gentle 
poet — "is  what  biography  ought  to  be."  And  in  the 
long  list  of  alluring  autobiographies,  from  Cellini's  and 
Gibber's,  from  Franklin's  and  Goldoni's,  there  are  few 
more  fascinating  than  the  *  Confidences  of  a  Prestidigi- 
tator' of  Robert-Houdin.  A  hostile  critic  of  Robert- 
Houdin's  career  has  recorded  the  fact — ^if  it  is  a  fact — 
that  Robert-Houdin  once  confided  to  a  fellow  magician 
that  his  autobiography  had  been  written  for  him  by  a 
clever  Parisian  joumahst;  and  it  must  be  admitted 
that  not  a  few  amusing  French  autobiographies  have 
not  been  the  children  of  their  putative  parents — ^for 
instance,  the  memoirs  of  Vidocq,  the  detective.  Yet 
this  is  not  as  damaging  an  admission  as  it  may  seem 
at  first  sight  since  the  clever  Parisian  journalist  may 
have  been  little  more  than  the  amanuensis  of  the 
prestidigitator,  hired  only  to  give  literary  form  to  the 
actual  recollections  of  his  employer.  Such  a  proceed- 
ing would  not  deprive  Robert-Houdin's  autobiography 
by  its  authenticity.  It  remains  a  classic,  beloved  by 
all  who  joy  in  the  delights  of  conjiuing.  Unfortunately 
the  hostile  critic  has  gone  further  in  his  attack  upon 

253 


A   BOOK   ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

Robert-Houdin's  reputation;  and  he  has  succeeded  in 
showing  that  the  renowned  French  conjurer  claimed 
as  his  own  invention  not  a  few  illusions  which  had  been 
already  exhibited  by  his  predecessors  in  the  art  of  de- 
ception. 

Yet  this  unjustified  boasting  does  not  invalidate 
Robert-Houdin's  title  to  be  considered  the  father  of 
modem  magic.  Even  if  he  was  treading  in  the  path 
of  those  who  had  gone  before,  he  attained  at  last  to  a 
consistent  theory  of  the  art,  far  in  advance  of  that  held 
by  earlier  magicians.  Many  of  his  marvels,  and  per- 
haps more  than  one  of  the  most  striking  of  them,  may 
have  been  but  improvements  upon  effects  originally 
contrived  by  others;  yet  every  succeeding  generation 
can  rise  only  by  standing  upon  the  shoulders  of  the 
generations  that  went  before,  and  it  is  justified  in  avail- 
ing itself  of  all  that  these  earher  generations  may  have 
discovered  and  invented.  Robert-Houdin  tells  us  him- 
self that  he  was  greatly  indebted  to  the  Comte  de  Grisy, 
whose  stage-name  was  Torrini.  In  fact,  Robert- 
Houdin  might  be  called  a  pupil  of  Torrini,  as  Mr. 
John  S.  Sargent  is  a  pupil  of  Carolus  Duran.  It  was 
upon  Torrini's  dignified  simplicity  as  a  magician  that 
Robert-Houdin  modelled  his  own  unpretending  pres- 
entation of  his  feats  of  magic.  Apparently  it  was  a 
famous  conjurer  named  Frikell,  who  first  discarded 
the  cumbersome  and  ghttering  array  of  apparatus 
which  used  to  be  displayed  on  the  stage  to  dazzle  the 
eyes  of  the  spectators;  but  this  discarding  of  obtrusive 
paraphernalia   was  not  deliberate,  being   due   only 

254 


MODERN    MAGIC 

to  the  accidental  destruction  of  Frikell's  stage-fumi- 
ture  by  fire,  whereby  the  performer  was  suddenly 
forced  to  rely  upon  the  less  compHcated  experiments, 
which  could  be  exhibited  without  extraneous  aid. 
The  abandoning  of  overt  apparatus,  which  Frikell  was 
forced  into  by  misfortune,  Robert-Houdin  adopted  as 
an  abiding  principle.  He  kept  his  stage  as  unencum- 
bered as  possible,  altho,  of  course,  he  brought  forward 
from  time  to  time  the  special  objects  necessary  for  the 
illusions  he  was  about  to  exhibit. 

Not  only  did  he  perform  on  a  stage  which  was  in- 
tended to  resemble  a  drawing-room,  he  also  eschewed 
any  other  costume  than  that  appropriate  to  a  drawing- 
room.  Earlier  performers  had  not  hesitated  to  deck 
themselves  in  Oriental  apparel  or  in  the  flowing  garb 
of  a  medieval  magician.  Robert-Houdin  was  always 
modem  and  never  medieval;  and  he  adopted  this 
attitude  dehberately.  He  was  the  first  to  formulate 
the  fundamental  principle  of  the  modem  art  of  magic 
— ^that  a  conjurer  should  be  "an  actor  playing  the  part 
of  a  magician."  One  of  the  foremost  exponents  of 
modem  magic,  Mr.  Maskelyne,  notes  that  many  con- 
jurers strive  only  to  play  the  part  of  some  other  con- 
jm-er;  and  it  might  be  added  that  there  are  not  a  few 
who  fan  entirely  to  see  the  necessity  for  playing  a  part 
and  who  content  themselves  with  a  purposeless  dis- 
play of  their  misplaced  dexterity.  But  the  masters 
of  the  art  are  men  like  Robert  Heller  and  Buatier  da 
Kolta,  who  were  accomplished  comedians,  each  in  his 
own  fashion,  and  who  presented  a  succession  of  little 

255 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

plays — for  a  truly  good  experiment  in  magic  is  really 
a  diminutive  drama. 

It  may  be  brief  and  simple — a  play  in  one  act;  or 
it  may  be  prolonged  and  complicated — a  play  in  three 
or  five  acts.  But  like  any  other  play  it  ought  to  pos- 
sess a  central  idea  and  to  have  a  definite  plot.  It 
should  tend  straight  toward  its  single  conclusion,  which 
must  be  the  logical  development  of  all  that  has  gone 
before;  that  is  to  say,  it  must  possess  what  the  critics 
of  the  drama  term  Unity  of  Action.  It  should  have  a 
beginning,  a  middle,  and  an  end,  in  accord  with  Aris- 
totle's requirement  for  a  tragedy.  It  must  work  up 
to  its  culmination  with  a  steadily  increasing  intensity 
of  interest.  It  must  contain  nothing  not  directly  con- 
tributory to  the  startling  climax  which  is  its  surprising 
and  satisfying  conclusion.  It  must  not  digress  or  dally 
in  by-paths,  however  entertaining  these  may  be  in 
themselves,  but  push  onward  to  its  inevitable  finish. 
It  is  only  by  conceiving  of  every  one  of  his  successive 
experiments  as  a  play,  complete  in  itself  and  governed 
by  the  inexorable  laws  of  the  drama,  that  the  magician 
can  rise  to  the  summit  of  his  art.  He  is  a  conjurer 
and  a  comedian  at  the  same  time,  making  his  dexterity 
the  servant  of  his  drama,  and  never  for  a  single  moment 
allowing  this  dexterity  to  force  itself  upon  the  atten- 
tion of  the  audience.  Indeed,  the  one  thing  he  ought 
to  conceal  is  his  possession  of  any  special  gift  in  manip- 
ulation. He  should  keep  his  audience  ever  guessing 
as  to  the  method  of  his  apparent  miracles. 


256 


MODERN    MAGIC 


II 


It  is  because  Robert-Houdin  was  seemingly  the  first 
conjurer  to  adopt  these  principles  as  his  irrefragable 
code  of  procedure  that  he  is  to  be  accepted  as  the  father 
of  modem  magic.  He  never  allowed  himself  to  parade 
his  skill  in  manipulating  coins  and  cards  at  the  risk  of 
distracting  the  attention  of  the  spectators  from  the 
central  and  culminating  effect  around  which  he  had 
constructed  his  plot.  No  doubt,  he  possessed  dex- 
terity in  abundance,  but  it  was  subordinate  to  his 
dramatic  intent.  No  doubt,  again,  some  of  the  de- 
vices he  used  had  sometimes  been  employed  by  a  long 
succession  of  his  predecessors  in  conjuring.  As  a 
matter  of  course  he  availed  himself  of  all  sorts  of  mere 
tricks,  of  ingenious  sleights,  and  of  artful  apparatus 
that  the  conjurers  who  went  before  him  had  devised 
for  their  own  use  long  before  he  was  bom.  An  experi- 
ment in  magic — ^to  use  the  term  that  Mr.  Maskelyne 
prefers,  is  not  a  mere  trick — or  at  least  it  ought  not  to 
be.  It  is  not  the  exhibition  of  a  device  or  of  a  sleight 
or  of  an  adroit  mechanical  apparatus.  Rather  is  it 
a  coherent  whole,  direct  in  its  development,  no  matter 
how  many  subtleties  of  concealment  and  deception  it 
may  employ  in  the  course  of  its  accomplishment. 

Most  amateurs  in  the  art  of  magic,  and  also  only 
too  many  professional  performers,  place  their  reliance 
mainly  upon  the  trick  itself — the  deceptive  manipula- 
tion or  the  novel  apparatus — and  are  satisfied  to  get 

257 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

out  of  it  what  they  can.  They  invent  new  methods  of 
changing  a  card  or  of  making  coins  pass  into  a  box, 
overlooking  the  fact  that  these  inventions  are  value- 
less except  as  they  may  be  utilized  to  facilitate  the  exe- 
cution of  one  of  those  larger  feats  which  only  are  fairly 
to  be  entitled  experiments  in  magic,  and  which  are 
distinguished  always  by  the  direct  simplicity  and  the 
straightforward  unity  of  their  plots.  In  fact,  an  ex- 
periment in  magic  must  aim  at  that  totality  of  effect, 
that  perfect  subordination  of  the  minor  means  to  the 
major  end,  which  Poe  insisted  upon  as  the  dominant 
characteristic  of  the  true  short-story.  And  this  total- 
ity of  effect  can  be  achieved  only  by  the  rigorous  ex- 
clusion of  everything  which  in  any  way  contradicts 
that  central  idea  out  of  which  the  true  short-story 
must  always  be  developed.  Unity  and  totality,  and  a 
rigorous  obedience  to  what  Herbert  Spencer  called  the 
Principle  of  Economy  of  Attention — ^these  are  the  essen- 
tial elements  in  the  presentation  of  a  worthy  experi- 
ment in  magic. 

An  intimate  friend  of  the  late  Alexander  Hermann, 
the  last  of  a  long  line  of  Hermanns  who  have  been 
eminent  in  the  history  of  the  art,  has  asserted  that 
Alexander  Hermann  was  wont  to  insist  that  the  con- 
jurer must  possess  three  qualifications  for  the  practise 
of  his  profession.  The  first  of  these  is  dexterity;  the 
second  is  dexterity;  and  the  third  is  also  dexterity. 
Now,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  this  assertion  is  true; 
but  it  may  be  easily  misapprehended.  A  conjurer 
needs  to  be  dexterous,  altho  more  than  one  master  of 

258 


MO.DERN    MAGIC 

modem  magic,  notably  Robert  Heller,  has  not  been 
pre-eminent  in  the  possession  of  this  qualification. 
A  moderate  degree  of  dexterity  is  essential,  and  per- 
haps more  than  a  moderate  degree;  but  dexterity  is 
not  the  prime  requisite,  which  is  rather  the  dramatic 
instinct,  or,  perhaps,  it  had  better  be  called  the  dram- 
aturgic imagination,  that  can  hit  on  a  new  idea  and 
build  it  up  into  a  plot,  and  thus  devise  an  experiment 
in  magic  completely  satisfactory  to  the  artistic  sense. 

What  the  master  of  the  magic  art  never  forgets  is 
that  dexterity  is  not  an  end  in  itself;  it  is  only  one  of 
the  means  by  the  aid  of  which  the  marvel  may  be 
wrought.  There  are,  to-day,  performers  of  a  surpass- 
ing skill  in  the  manipulation  of  cards  and  coins,  capable 
of  feats  which  would  have  been  the  despair  of  Robert- 
Houdin  and  of  Robert  Heller;  and  some  of  them  are 
so  enamored  of  their  own  dexterity  that  in  their  eager- 
ness for  its  exhibition  they  lose  sight  of  unity  and 
totality.  As  a  result  of  this  lapse  from  the  loftier 
standards  of  their  art  they  present  a  disconcerting 
huddle  of  sleights  of  hand  until  the  amazed  spectators 
lose  all  sense  of  progression,  as  these  bewildering  effects 
tumble  over  one  another  without  any  attempt  at 
climax.  Such  a  performance  is  an  empty  display  of 
difficulty  conquered  for  its  own  sake;  it  is  only  a  se- 
quence of  "stunts";  it  is  mere  vanity  and  vexation  of 
spirit.  It  is  like  the  favorite  Scotch  dish,  the  haggis, 
which  is  said  to  supply  only  "confused  feeding." 

It  is  always  interesting  to  note  how  the  principles  of 
the  arts  have  a  certain  relation,  and  how  we  can 

259 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

constantly  discover  parallels  in  two  wholly  different 
fields.  This  abuse  of  dexterity  in  the  art  of  modem 
magic  is  closely  akin  to  the  abuse  of  toe-dancing  in 
the  art  of  the  ballet.  As  the  conjurer  ought  to  have 
dexterity  at  his  command  to  serve  when  it  is  needed, 
so  the  accomplished  ballet-dancer  ought  to  be  able  to 
walk  on  her  toes,  when  this  feat  will  fit  into  the  scheme 
of  the  special  dance  she  has  undertaken  to  perform. 
But  for  a  dancer  to  confine  herself  to  the  executing  of 
a  series  of  difficult  steps  involving  nothing  more  than 
toe-dancing  is  to  circumscribe  the  range  of  her  art 
and  to  accept  as  the  end  what  ought  to  be  only  the 
means.  Here  again,  we  have  a  frank  substitution  of  a 
single  "stunt"  for  the  larger  Hberty  accorded  by  a 
more  intelligent  understanding  of  the  true  principles 
of  the  art.  The  excessive  toe-work  of  the  dancer,  like 
the  excessive  dexterity  of  the  conjurer,  is  at  bottom 
only  what  boys  call  "showing  off";  and  in  the  long  run 
even  boys  tire  of  this.  To  descend  to  showing  off  is 
equivalent  to  the  blunder  common  in  bad  architecture, 
when  we  cannot  help  seeing  that  the  artist  has  gone 
afield  to  construct  his  ornament,  instead  of  concen- 
trating his  effort  on  ornamenting  his  construction. 

So  far  from  permitting  himself  ever  to  show  off,  or 
to  invite  attention  to  his  own  skill,  the  master  of  mod- 
em magic  is  careful  always  to  conceal  as  far  as  possible 
the  method  by  which  he  accomplishes  his  wonders. 
He  utilizes  at  will  and  in  conjunction  ingenious  appa- 
ratus and  manual  dexterity,  without  ever  calling  the 
attention  of  the  spectators  to  either.    He  refrains  even 

260 


MODERN    MAGIC 

from  turning  up  his  sleeves  or  from  passing  for  special 
examination  any  of  the  objects  he  is  employing,  while 
taking  care  to  let  it  be  seen  accidentally  that  these  ob- 
jects are  really  above  suspicion.  Like  the  playwright 
constructing  a  play,  the  composer  of  an  experiment  in 
magic  must  ever  keep  in  mind  his  audience;  and  he 
must  strive  always  to  foresee  the  exact  impression  he 
is  making  upon  the  spectators.  Like  the  playwright, 
the  modem  magician  must  so  build  up  each  of  his  ex- 
periments that  it  seizes  the  attention  of  the  spectators 
early,  that  it  arouses  their  interest,  that  it  holds  this 
interest  unrelaxed  to  the  end,  and  that  at  last  it  satis- 
fies while  it  surprises.  This  can  be  achieved  only  when 
all  the  elements  of  the  experiment,  the  idea  itself,  the 
plot,  the  dexterous  devices,  and  the  ingenious  apparatus 
which  may  be  necessary,  are  all  so  combined  and  con- 
trolled and  harmonized  as  to  leave  on  the  memory  of 
the  audience  a  clear  and  consistent  impression — indeed, 
an  impression  so  sharp  that  a  majority  of  those  who 
witnessed  the  experiment  could  describe  it  the  next 
day. 

It  is  the  disadvantage  of  the  empty  display  of  dex- 
terity for  its  own  sake  that  fails  to  leave  this  definite 
deposit  in  the  memory;  and  the  spectators  are  quite 
unable  to  recall  the  central  effect.  This  is  generally 
because  there  was,  in  fact,  no  central  effect  for  them  to 
seize,  the  performer  having  scattered  his  efforts,  as  tho 
he  were  using  a  shot-gun  instead  of  hitting  the  bull's- 
eye  with  a  single  rifle-shot.  The  master  of  the  art  is 
careful  to  economize  the  attention  of  his  audience,  to 

261 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

focus  it,  so  to  speak,  and  to  arrange  his  sequence  of 
effects  so  adroitly  that,  however  multifarious  and  even 
complicated  may  be  the  means  whereby  he  is  achiev- 
ing his  object,  the  result  is  attained  so  directly  and  so 
simply  that  it  can  be  apprehended  by  the  spectators 
readily  and  instantly.  The  experiment  has  been  ex- 
hibited as  tho  it  were  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world, 
even  if  it  is  at  the  same  time  perceived  to  be  the  most 
impossible  to  account  for.  To  arrive  at  this  result  the 
performer  must  preserve  an  absolute  simplicity  of 
manner;  he  presents  himself  as  a  gentleman  amusing 
himself  by  amusing  other  gentlemen,  who  have  come 
together  at  his  invitation  to  be  amused. 

m 

A  gentleman  amusing  other  gentlemen — that  should 
be  the  ideal;  and  this  ideal  not  only  forbids  any  foolish 
clowning  and  any  trivial  buffoonery  on  the  part  of  the 
performer,  but  it  prohibits  also  any  attempt  on  his 
part  to  incite  the  gentlemen  he  is  amusing  to  laugh  at 
any  one  of  their  own  number  who  may  have  been  kind 
enough  to  lend  a  hat  or  a  watch,  or  to  come  up  on  the 
stage  as  a  volunteer  assistant  by  request.  Nothing  is 
cheaper,  and  nothing  is  in  worse  taste,  than  for  the 
performer  to  make  personal  remarks  about  any  mem- 
ber of  his  audience  or  to  hold  any  one  of  the  spectators 
up  to  ridicule.  The  conjurer  is  a  comedian  playing 
the  part  of  a  modem  magician,  but  he  is  not  a  low- 
comedian,  ready  to  get  a  laugh  at  any  price  and  at 

262 


MODERN    MAGIC 

the  cost  of  any  one  else.  He  may  be  as  pleasant  as 
he  can,  and  even  as  humorous,  but  he  can  preserve  his 
own  self-respect  only  by  having  due  regard  to  the  seK- 
respect  of  all  those  who  have  gathered  to  enjoy  his 
performance.  Readers  of  Robert-Houdin's  memoirs 
will  remember  how  one  of  the  old-school  performers  used 
to  advertise  that  he  would  Eat  a  Man  Alive,  and  how 
he  sprinkled  flour  and  pepper  and  salt  all  over  the 
hapless  creature  who  volunteered  to  be  devoured,  and 
then  proceeded  to  bite  the  finger  of  the  disgusted  and 
unfortunate  victim.  This  is  "most  tolerable  and  not 
to  be  endured." 

If  a  demand  were  to  be  made  for  a  list  of  the  books 
likely  to  be  the  most  useful  to  those  who  desire  to 
master  the  principles  of  the  art  of  modem  magic,  one 
would  have  to  begin  by  recommending  the  preliminary 
perusal  of  the  autobiography  of  Robert-Houdin,  from 
which  a  host  of  useful  hints  may  be  gleaned.  The 
Frenchman  tells  us,  for  instance,  how  he  once  showed 
off  before  Torrini  and  exhibited  his  manipulative  skill 
over  a  pack  of  cards,  making  a  needless  display  of 
dexterity,  designed  to  dazzle  the  eyes  of  the  spectators; 
and  how  Torrini  pointed  out  the  futility  and  the  dis- 
advantage of  this.  Then  it  would  be  well  to  consult 
the  invaluable  series  of  volumes  on  modem  magic  by 
"Professor  Hoffman"  wherein  the  various  tricks  and 
sleights  and  apparatus  are  described  and  illustrated. 
These  books  contain  what  may  be  called  the  raw  mate- 
rial of  the  art,  the  processes  which  the  magician  can 
employ  at  will  in  building  up  his  larger  experiments  in 

263 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

magic,  each  of  which  should  be  a  complete  play  in  it- 
self. Finally,  when  the  student  has  found  out  how 
tricks  can  be  done,  he  would  do  well  to  turn  his  atten- 
tion to  'Our  Magic,'  by  Mr.  Maskelyne  and  his  associ- 
ate, Mr.  David  Devant.  And  from  this  logical  treatise 
he  can  learn  how  experiments  in  magic  ought  to  be 
composed.  It  is  from  this  admirable  discussion  of  the 
basic  principles  of  modem  magic  that  several  of  the 
points  made  in  this  essay  have  been  borrowed. 

Mr.  Devant  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  new 
tricks  are  common,  new  manipulative  devices,  new  ex- 
amples of  dexterity,  and  new  applications  of  science, 
whereas  new  plots,  new  ideas  for  effective  presentation, 
are  rare.  He  describes  a  series  of  experiments  of  his 
own,  some  of  which  utilize  again,  but  in  a  novel  man- 
ner, devices  long  familiar,  while  others  are  new  both  in 
idea  and  in  many  of  the  subsidiary  methods  of  execu- 
tion. One  of  the  most  hackneyed  and  yet  one  of  the 
most  effective  illusions  in  the  repertory  of  the  conjurer, 
is  that  known  as  the  Rising  Cards.  The  performer 
brings  forward  a  pack  of  cards,  several  of  which  are 
drawn  by  members  of  the  audience  and  returned  to  the 
pack,  whereupon  at  the  command  of  the  magician  they 
rise  out  of  the  pack,  one  after  the  other,  in  the  order  in 
which  they  were  drawn.  In  the  oldest  form  in  which 
this  illusion  is  described  in  the  books  on  the  art  of 
magic,  the  pack  is  placed  in  a  case  supported  by  a  rod 
standing  on  a  base;  and  the  secret  of  the  trick  lies  in 
this  rod  and  its  base.  The  rod  is  really  a  hollow  tube, 
and  the  base  is  really  an  empty  box.    The  tube  is 

264 


MODERN    MAGIC 

filled  with  sand,  on  the  top  of  which  rests  a  leaden 
weight;  to  which  is  attached  a  thread  so  arranged  over 
and  under  certain  cards  as  to  cause  the  chosen  cards 
to  rise  when  it  descends  down  the  tube;  and  in  putting 
the  cards  into  the  case  the  conjurer  releases  a  valve 
at  the  bottom  of  the  tube,  so  that  the  sand  might 
escape  into  the  box,  whereby  the  weight  is  lowered, 
the  thread  then  doing  its  allotted  work,  and  the  cards 
ascending  into  view,  no  matter  how  far  distant  from 
them  the  performer  may  be  standing  when  he  achieves 
his  miracle. 

It  seems  likely  that  the  invention  of  this  primitive 
apparatus  may  have  been  due  to  the  fact  that  some 
eighteenth-century  conjurer  happened  to  observe  the 
sand  running  out  of  an  hour-glass,  and  set  about  to 
find  some  means  whereby  this  escape  of  sand  could  be 
utilized  in  his  art.  The  hollow  rod,  the  escaping  sand, 
and  the  descending  weight  have  long  since  been  dis- 
carded; but  the  illusion  of  the  Rising  Cards  survives 
and  is  now  performed  in  an  unending  variety  of  ways. 
The  pack  may  be  held  in  the  hand  of  the  performer, 
without  the  use  of  any  case;  or  it  may  be  placed  in  a 
glass  goblet;  or  it  may  be  tied  together  with  a  ribbon 
and  thus  suspended  from  cords  that  swing  to  and 
fro  almost  over  the  heads  of  the  spectators,  and  how- 
ever they  may  be  isolated,  the  chosen  cards  rise  obedi- 
ently when  they  are  bidden.  The  original  effect  sub- 
sists, even  tho  the  devices  differ. 

It  was  left  for  Mr.  Devant  to  give  a  new  twist  to 
this  old  illusion.    For  a  full  pack  of  playing-cards  he 

265 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

substituted  ten  cards  two  or  three  times  larger  than 
playing-cards;  and  with  the  ten  numerals  printed  or 
painted  in  bold  black.  These]  pasteboards  are  given 
for  examination,  and  so  is  a  case  into  which  they  fit. 
After  they  have  been  duly  inspected  they  are  put  into 
the  case  which  is  hung  from  chains.  A  clean  slate  is 
also  shown,  and  wrapped  up  and  given  to  a  spectator 
to  hold.  Then  three  members  of  the  audience  are  in- 
vited to  write  each  a  number  composed  of  three  fig- 
ures, and  these  three  numbers  are  added  by  a  fourth 
spectator.  The  total  is  foimd  to  be  written  on  the 
slate;  and  then  at  the  behest  of  the  performer  the 
cards  containing  the  figures  of  this  total  rise  in  proper 
sequence  out  of  the  case.  It  may  be  noted  that  the 
writing  on  the  slate  is  also  an  old  and  well-worn  de- 
vice, and  so  is  the  method  of  making  sure  that  the 
total  of  the  three  numbers  written  by  different  persons 
shall  agree  with  that  already  concealed  on  the  slate. 
Yet  these  three  familiar  effects  are  here  united  in  a 
refreshingly  novel  experiment  in  magic,  being  now 
fitted  into  a  new  plot.  The  devices  themselves  are  old 
enough,  but  Mr.  Devant  is  entitled  to  full  credit  for 
the  new  combination. 


IV 

The  fundamental  principles  which  Robert-Houdin 
accepted  and  which  he  seems  to  have  taken  over  from 
Torrini,  Messrs.  Maskelyne  and  Devant  have  eluci- 
dated in  their  philosophic  disquisition,  and  yet  in  one 

266 


MODERN    MAGIC 

particular  their  practise  is  not  yet  level  with  their 
preaching.  Before  Robert-Houdin  and  Frikell,  or  at 
least  before  Torrini,  and  even  after  these  three  artists 
had  set  a  better  example,  the  majority  of  conjurers 
filled  the  stage  with  gaudy  apparatus  and  insisted  on 
its  blazing  with  an  unnecessary  prodigaUty  of  lights. 
One  magician  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century 
came  forward  on  a  stage  absolutely  dark,  and  suddenly 
fired  a  pistol,  thereby  lighting  two  hundred  candles 
arranged  in  pyramids  behind  him.  Another  hung  his 
stage  with  black  velvet  and  adorned  it  with  skulls. 
Torrini  and  Robert-Houdin  made  an  approach  to  the 
unadorned  simplicity  of  an  actual  drawing-room,  altho 
Robert-Houdin  seems  to  have  permitted  himself  a  long 
shelf  at  the  back  of  his  stage  on  which  his  various  auto- 
matic figures  were  assembled  awaiting  their  summons 
to  take  part  in  the  program.  Even  Messrs.  Maskelyne 
and  Devant  are  satisfied  with  a  stage-setting  which  is 
frankly  only  a  stage-setting — as  stagy,  in  fact,  as  the 
ordinary  scenery  to  be  seen  in  a  variety-show. 

Now,  it  may  be  admitted  that  a  nondescript  set  of 
this  sort,  vaguely  Oriental,  with  arches  and  curtains, 
and  somewhat  suggestive  of  comic  opera,  may  not  be 
inappropriate  when  any  one  of  the  bolder  illusions  is  to 
be  presented — the  Box  Trick  or  the  Aerial  Suspension, 
the  Mystic  Cabinet  or  the  Talking  Sphinx.  Indeed, 
a  special  set  of  scenery  is  often  actually  necessary  for 
the  presentation  of  marvels  depending  mainly  on  op- 
tics or  mechanics.  But  for  the  first  part  of  the  pro- 
gram, when  the  performer  appears  in  ordinary  evening- 

267 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

dress,  and  when  he  is  presenting  himself  as  a  gentleman 
in  a  drawing-room,  amusing  other  gentlemen,  by  means 
of  experiments  in  magic,  every  one  of  which  may  be 
likened  to  a  little  play,  why  should  not  the  stage-set 
be  that  of  a  drawing-room,  or  of  a  bachelor's  study,  as 
accurately  reproduced  as  similar  rooms  are  reproduced 
in  the  modern  comedies  of  Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones 
and  Mr.  Augustus  Thomas?  The  set  accepted  by 
Messrs.  Maskelyne  and  Devant  is  devoid  of  the  actu- 
ality of  a  real  room;  it  is  fantastically  stagy,  and  there- 
fore it  lacks  both  veracity  and  dignity. 

Sooner  or  later  some  modem  magician,  in  advance 
over  his  rivals,  will  take  this  final  step,  and  the  curtain 
will  rise  on  a  stage  with  a  box-set  realistically  reproduc- 
ing a  handsome  room,  with  all  its  decorations  and  hang- 
ings and  furniture  in  harmony,  Jacobean  in  style,  or 
Chippendale,  as  the  performer's  preference  may  be. 
There  will  be  chairs  and  tables  in  their  proper  places; 
there  will  be  book-cases,  and  window-boxes  of  flowers; 
and  perhaps  there  will  be  a  cellaret,  where  the  per- 
former may  procure  any  goblet  or  decanter  he  needs. 
There  will  be  a  broad  desk  in  the  center,  with  its  writing- 
pad  and  its  book-rack,  and  possibly  its  heap  of  maga- 
zines and  weekly  papers.  This  set  thus  furnished  will 
look  like  a  room  that  has  really  been  lived  in;  it  will 
have  a  door  in  each  of  the  side  walls,  and  when  the 
curtain  rises  the  stage  will  be  empty.  Then  the  door- 
bell will  ring,  and  the  servant  will  enter  at  one  door, 
and,  going  across  the  stage  to  the  other,  he  will  admit 
his  master — the  master  at  last  of  the  truly  modem  art 

268 


MODERN    MAGIC 

of  magic.  The  magician  will  give  his  hat  and  coat 
to  the  servant,  who  will  take  them  out,  and  who  will 
never  appear  on  the  stage  again  except  in  response  to 
the  master's  pressure  on  the  electric  button,  ordinarily 
used  to  sunmaon  a  servant.  And  the  magician  will 
present  his  succession  of  experiments  in  magic,  utiliz- 
ing only  the  objects  which  he  may  borrow  from  the 
spectators,  or  which  would  naturally  be  found  in  a 
gentleman's  room.  The  apparent  absence  of  all  ap- 
paratus, the  naturalness  of  the  environment,  the  easy 
simplicity  and  the  convincing  reality  of  the  back- 
ground— all  these  elements  will  coalesce  to  heighten 
the  effect  of  the  marvels  to  be  wrought  by  a  comedian 
playing  the  part  of  a  magician. 

(1912.) 


269 


XVI 

THE  LAMENTABLE  TRAGEDY  OF 
PUNCH  AND  JUDY 


THE  LAMENTABLE  TRAGEDY  OF  PUNCH  AND 
JUDY 


When  we  consider  how  cosmopolitan  is  the  population 
of  these  United  States,  and  how  freely  we  have  drawn 
upon  all  the  races  of  Europe,  it  is  very  curious  that 
the  puppet-show  does  not  flourish  in  our  American 
cities  as  it  flourishes  in  many  of  the  towns  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Western  Ocean.  The  shrill  squeak  of 
Punch  is  not  infrequent  in  the  streets  of  London — 
altho  it  may  not  now  be  heard  as  often  as  it  was 
a  score  of  years  ago.  In  Paris  in  the  gardens  of 
the  Tuileries  and  of  the  Luxembourg,  and  again  in  the 
Champs-Elys6es  where  the  children  congregate  in  the 
afternoon,  there  are  nearly  half  a  dozen  enclosures 
roped  off  and  provided  with  cane  chairs  so  that  spec- 
tators, old  and  yoimg,  may  be  gladdened  by  the  vision 
of  Polichinelle,  and  by  the  pranks  of  Guignol.  Yet 
even  in  Paris  there  are  not  now  as  many  puppet-shows 
as  there  were  fifty  years  ago;  and  in  Italy  and  in  Ger- 
many the  traveler  fails  to  find  as  frequent  exhibitions 
of  this  sort  as  he  used  to  meet  with  in  the  years  that 
are  gone.  Apparently  there  is  everywhere  a  waning 
interest  in  the  plays  performed  by  the  little  troop  of 
personages  animated  by  the  thumb  and  fingers  of  the 

273 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

invisible  perfomier.  And  perhaps  the  declining  vogue 
of  this  diminutive  drama  in  old  Europe  is  one  reason 
why  it  has  never  achieved  a  wide  popularity  in  young 
America. 

In  France  the  puppet-show  is  stationary;  it  has  its 
fixed  habitation  and  abode;  and  its  lovers  can  easily 
discover  where  to  find  it  when  they  seek  the  specific 
pleasure  it  alone  can  provide.  In  England  the  spec- 
tacle of  Punch  and  Judy  is  ambulatory;  the  blood- 
thirsty hero  and  the  bereaved  heroine  roam  the  streets 
at  large,  and  their  arrival  in  any  one  avenue  of  traffic 
can  never  be  predicted  with  certainty.  In  the  United 
States  poor  Pimch  has  never  ventured  to  show  his 
face  in  the  open  street,  seeking  the  suffrages  of  the 
casual  throng;  he  is  not  peripatetic  but  intermittent, 
and  he  makes  his  appearances  only  in  private  houses, 
and  only  when  he  is  sent  for  specially  to  entertain  the 
children's  party.  Here  in  America  Punch  is  still  a 
stranger  to  the  broad  public;  he  has  an  exotic  flavor; 
he  suggests  Dickens,  somehow;  and  he  must  be  wholly 
unknown  to  countless  thousands  who  would  rejoice  to 
make  his  acquaintance  and  to  laugh  at  his  terrible 
deeds. 

His  terrible  deeds ! — ^perhaps  there  is  in  these  words 
a  possible  explanation  for  the  failure  of  Punch  to  win 
favor  among  the  descendants  of  the  Puritans,  who  are 
always  inclined  to  apply  severe  moral  standards  of 
conduct.  Now,  if  we  apply  any  moral  standard  at  all 
to  the  conduct  of  Mr.  Punch,  the  result  is  simply  ap- 
palling, for  the  customary  drama  of  which  he  is  the  sole 

274 


Behind  the  scenes 


Punch  throws  away  the  child 


liitMiitiMt  B»y.to.ri,iaa 


Punch,  Judy,  and  their  child 


Punch  quiets  Judy 


PUNCH   AND    JUDY 

hero  sets  before  us  a  story  of  triumphant  villainy,  ade- 
quately to  be  compared  only  with  the  dastardly  history 
of  Richard  III  in  Shakspere's  melodramatic  tragedy. 
Mr.  Punch  is  an  accessory  before  the  fact  in  the  death 
of  his  infant  child,  and  when  his  devoted  wife  very  nat- 
urally remonstrates  with  him,  he  turns  upon  her  with 
invective  and  violence — a  violence  which  culminates 
in  assassination.  Having  once  seen  red  and  tasted 
blood,  he  finds  himself  swiftly  started  upon  a  career 
of  crime.  His  total  depravity  tempts  him  to  a  startling 
succession  of  hideous  murders.  He  slays  an  inoffen- 
sive negro,  a  harmless  clown,  and  a  worthy  policeman. 
Then  he  succeeds,  by  a  simple  trick,  in  hanging  the 
hangman  himself.  By  his  fatal  assaults  upon  these 
two  officers  of  justice,  the  necessary  policeman  and  the 
useful  hangman,  Mr.  Punch  exhibits  his  contempt  for 
the  majesty  of  the  law.  He  stands  forth,  without  a 
shred  of  conscience,  as  a  practical  anarchist,  rejecting 
all  authority.  His  hand  is  against  every  man  and  every 
man's  hand  is  against  him.  And  having  violated  the 
laws  of  this  world,  he  finally  discloses  his  callous  con- 
tempt for  the  punishment  which  ought  to  await  him 
in  the  next  world;  he  has  a  hand-to-hand  fight  with  the 
devil  himself — a  deadly  struggle  from  which  he  emerges 
victorious.  And  this  is  the  end,  which  crowns  the 
work. 

When  we  consider  the  several  episodes  of  Mr.  Punch's 
abhorrent  history,  we  are  reluctantly  forced  to  the  con- 
clusion that  his  story  is  even  less  informed  with  moral- 
ity than  that  of  Richard  III.    The  crookbacked  king 

275 


A   BOOK   ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

comes  to  a  bad  end  at  last;  he  meets  with  the  just 
retribution  for  his  many  misdeeds;  and  he  falls  before 
the  sword  of  Richmond.  But  Mr.  Pimch  comes  to  a 
good  end,  and  so  far  as  we  may  know,  he  lives  happy 
ever  after,  like  the  princes  and  princesses  of  the  fairy- 
tales. He  may  even  marry  again  and  have  another 
child,  to  be  made  away  with  in  its  turn.  The  more 
we  consider  his  misdeeds  and  his  misadventures  the 
more  shocking  they  are  to  our  moral  sense.  Mr. 
Punch  appears  as  a  monster  of  such  hideous  mien  that 
to  be  hated  he  needs  but  to  be  seen.  This  is  how  he 
must  appear  to  every  one  of  us  who  applies  a  moral 
standard  to  the  drama,  and  who  is  willing  to  hold 
every  character  in  a  play  to  a  strict  accountability  for 
his  words  and  deeds.  If  we  apply  this  moral  standard 
to  the  play  of  Punch  and  Judy,  then  that  play  must  be 
dismissed  as  profoundly  and  hopelessly  immoral,  carry- 
ing ethical  infection  to  all  who  are  so  unfortunate  as 
to  be  spectators  at  its  performance.  And  more  par- 
ticularly, it  is  an  absolutely  unfit  piece  for  the  young, 
whose  immature  minds  need  to  be  guarded  against 
everything  which  might  tend  to  confuse  the  delicate 
distinctions  between  right  and  wrong. 

But,  of  course,  we  do  not  apply  a  moral  standard  to 
the  sayings  and  doings  of  Mr.  Punch,  for  the  plain  and 
sufficient  reason  that  he  is  not  a  human  being.  He  is 
not  a  man  and  a  brother,  upon  whom  we  may  be 
tempted  to  pattern  ourselves.  He  is  but  a  six-inch 
puppet,  a  thing  of  shreds  and  patches,  a  wooden- 
headed  doll,  vitalized  for  a  moment  only  by  the  hand 

276 


Punch  on  his  steed 


Punch  teaches  Jack  Ketch  how  to 
hang  a  man 


Punch  in  prison 


Punch  kills  the  Devil 


PUNCH   AND   JUDY 

concealed  inside  his  flimsy  body  with  its  flaunting 
colors.  He  is  too  fantastic,  too  impossible,  too  unreal, 
too  imrelated  to  any  possible  world,  for  us  to  feel  called 
upon  to  frown  upon  his  misdeeds  or  to  take  them  seri- 
ously. He  is  a  joke,  and  we  know  that  he  is  a  joke, 
and  all  the  children  know  that  he  is  only  a  joke.  Even 
the  yoimgest  child  is  never  tempted  to  believe  in  his 
existence  and  to  be  moved  to  follow  his  example  or 
to  imitate  his  dark  deeds.  The  proof  of  the  pudding 
is  in  the  eating;  and  the  proof  of  a  play  is  in  the  effect 
it  produces  upon  the  spectators.  We  may  question 
whether  any  one  of  the  millions  of  performances  of 
the  lamentable  tragedy  of  Mr.  Punch  has  suggested 
to  a  single  father  the  fatal  neglect  of  his  offspring  or 
to  a  single  husband  the  possibility  of  wife-murder. 
And  we  may  doubt  whether  any  child,  after  witnessing 
Mr.  Punch's  murderous  combats  with  the  policeman 
and  the  devil,  has  ever  felt  any  lessening  of  his  respect 
for  those  two  time-honored  guardians  of  law  and  order. 
The  plea  of  confession  and  avoidance  which  is  here 
set  up  for  Punch  and  Judy  is  much  the  same  as  that 
set  up  by  Charles  Lamb  for  the  frolicsome  Restora- 
tion comedies.  Lamb  admitted  that  they  were  de- 
gradingly  immoral — if  you  took  them  seriously  and 
accepted  them  as  pictures  of  life.  But  he  insisted  that 
they  were  not  really  amenable  to  this  moral  standard, 
since  they  were  plainly  impossible  in  any  world  known 
to  man.  Macaulay  had  no  difficulty  in  showing  that 
Lamb  was  judging  others  by  his  clever  and  sophisti- 
cated self.    To  Lamb  the  creatures  of  Wycherley  and 

277 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

Congreve  might  reveal  manners  and  customs  which 
removed  them  from  the  sphere  of  recognizable  human- 
ity; but  the  majority  of  his  fellow-spectators  were  not 
so  nimble-witted;  they  saw  characters  on  the  stage 
personated  by  living  performers,  and  they  beheld  these 
characters  shamelessly  doing  shameful  things.  Because 
the  persons  in  the  play  were  represented  by  actual 
human  beings  they  seemed  indisputably  human;  and 
their  deeds  could  not  be  considered  as  outside  morahty. 
Yet  the  plea  made  by  Lamb  for  the  Restoration  com- 
edies has  a  certain  validity  when  it  is  put  forward  in 
behalf  of  Mr.  Punch.  He  is  not  personated  by  an 
actual  human  being;  and  even  the  least  sophisticated 
of  juvenile  spectators  does  not  accept  him  as  a  fellow- 
creature  strictly  amenable  to  the  human  code. 

II 

Historians  of  the  Greek  drama  have  often  commented 
on  the  fact  that  the  Athenian  actors  wore  towering 
masks,  and  that  thereby  they  were  deprived  of  all  facial 
expression.  In  our  snug  modem  theaters,  with  then* 
well-lighted  stages,  we  foUow  with  our  eyes  the  shift- 
ing emotions  as  these  chase  each  other  across  the  faces 
of  the  actors;  and  this  is  one  of  our  keenest  pleasures 
in  the  playhouse.  In  the  huge  theater  of  Dionysius  at 
Athens,  with  its  ten  or  twenty  thousand  spectators, 
seated  tier  on  tier,  along  the  curving  hillside  of  the 
Acropolis,  the  actor  was  too  far  removed  from  most 
of  the  playgoers  for  any  play  of  feature  to  be  visible; 

278 


PUNCH    AND    JUDY 

and  critics  have  commiserated  the  Attic  dramatists 
on  their  deprivation  of  this  element  of  potent  appeal. 
Yet  the  question  arises  whether  the  Greek  plaj^wrights 
were  really  the  losers  by  this  immobility  of  the  actors' 
faces;  and  we  may  be  allowed  to  doubt  that  they  were 
when  we  recall  the  fact  that  the  faces  of  Mr.  Punch 
and  of  Mrs.  Judy,  of  the  policeman  and  of  the  hang- 
man, are  also  j&xed  once  for  all.  The  expression  that 
Mr.  Pimch  wears  when  he  is  fondling  the  baby  is,  per- 
force, the  same  which  illuminates  his  face  when  he  is 
engaged  in  joyful  combat  with  the  devil,  a  foeman 
worthy  of  his  stick.  Here  the  imagination  of  the  spec- 
tator comes  to  the  rescue.  The  wooden  head  of  Mr. 
Punch  is  unchanging,  no  doubt;  but  those  who  gaze 
entranced  upon  his  marvelous  doings  never  miss  the 
play  of  feature  which  they  would  expect  if  they  were 
part  of  the  audience  in  a  playhouse  for  grown-ups. 
Quite  possibly  the  Athenian  spectators  did  not  mind 
the  immobihty  of  the  masks  their  actors  wore;  indeed, 
that  very  immobility  may  have  been  an  incentive  to 
their  imaginations.  When  the  Greeks  went  to  their 
open-air  theater,  as  when  we  gather  aroimd  the  tent- 
like theater  of  Mr.  Punch,  they  knew  in  advance,  as 
we  also  know,  that  the  faces  of  the  performers  would 
be  unchanging;  therefore  they  did  not  expect  any 
variety  of  expression;  and  probably  they  got  along  as 
well  without  it  as  we  do  at  a  puppet-show. 

There  is  another  likeness  between  Attic  tragedy  and 
Punch  and  Judy;  there  is  a  limitation  in  the  number 
of  characters  we  are  allowed  to  see  at  the  same  time. 

279 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

As  the  hidden  performer  who  operates  all  the  figures 
has  only  two  hands,  he  can  bring  before  us  at  any  one 
moment  only  Mr.  Punch  and  one  other  of  the  several 
characters.  The  fingers  of  the  right  hand  animate 
Mr.  Punch,  and  the  fingers  of  the  left  hand  animate 
in  turn  Mrs.  Judy  and  the  negro  and  the  clown.  At 
Athens  (for  reasons  which  need  not  here  be  discussed) 
the  dramatist  had  the  use  of  only  three  actors,  even 
tho  these  might  each  of  them  "double"  and  appear 
as  two  or  more  of  the  successive  characters  of  the  play. 
So  it  was  that  there  were  never  more  than  three  per- 
sons taking  part  in  any  given  episode  of  an  Attic  trag- 
edy as  there  are  never  more  than  two  persons  taking 
part  in  any  given  episode  of  Punch  and  Judy.  In 
the  thumb-and-finger  plays  devised  in  Paris  by  M. 
Lemercier  de  Neuville,  he  felt  so  severely  the  incon- 
venience of  his  limitation  to  two  characters  that  he 
devised  a  kind  of  spiral-spring  arrangement  inside 
the  costumes  of  his  little  figures  to  hold  up  their 
heads;  and  he  prepared  invisible  supports  jutting  out 
just  below  the  flat  ledge  which  forms  the  base  of  the 
proscenium.  Thus  he  was  enabled  to  leave  the  figure 
in  sight,  while  he  withdrew  his  hand  to  animate  an- 
other character.  His  Pupazzi,  as  he  called  them,  were 
clever  caricatures  of  contemporary  celebrities;  and  he 
was  ingenious  enough  sometimes  to  maneuver  half  a 
dozen  of  them  at  once  with  his  single  pair  of  hands, 
four  adjusted  into  the  projecting  rests,  and  two  on  his 
fingers. 
In  the  sumptuous  puppet-show  in  the  gardens  of  the 

280 


PUNCH   AND    JUDY 

Tuileries  the  same  result  is  achieved  by  the  employ- 
ment of  two  or  three  manipulators;  so  that  four  or 
even  six  figures  may  appear  at  once.  This  has  greatly 
enlarged  the  scope  of  the  performance;  and  the  man- 
ager of  this  theater  has  very  ambitious  aims.  He  likes 
to  rearrange  for  his  juvenile  audience  the  most  appro- 
priate of  the  pieces  which  have  won  favor  in  the  real 
theaters,  and  to  present  these  with  all  sorts  of  spec- 
tacular adornments.  He  has  even  ventured  to  give 
plays  as  elaborate  as  ^Aroimd  the  World  in  Eighty 
Days.'  But  it  may  be  doubted  whether  this  vaulting 
ambition  has  not  overleaped  itself,  and  whether  a 
puppet-show  does  not  gain  rather  than  lose  by  re- 
stricting its  efforts  within  narrower  limits.  After  aU, 
nothing  so  delights  us  at  a  puppet-show  as  the  feats 
which  are  most  characteristic  and  least  difficult  of 
accompKshment.  We  joy  to  behold  one  tiny  figure 
belaboring  another  with  his  soHd  club  or  to  follow  the 
vicissitudes  of  a  bout  at  single-stick,  when  both  com- 
batants thwack  lustily  at  each  other's  wooden  heads. 

m 

Yet  this  mention  of  M.  Lemercier  de  Neuville's 
Pupazzi,  with  their  varied  repertory  of  Aristophanic 
commentaries  on  current  events,  and  this  memory  of 
the  spectacular  efforts  exhibited  in  the  gardens  of  the 
Tuileries,  suggest  a  possible  explanation  for  the  fact 
that  Punch  and  Judy  have  failed  to  find  wide-spread 
favor  here  in  America  and  that  they  seem  to  be  losing 

281 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

their  pristine  popularity  in  England.  There  is  a  pitia- 
ble monotony  of  program  in  all  English-speaking 
puppet-shows.  They  confine  their  repertory  to  the 
single  play  which  sets  forth  the  deeds  and  misdeeds  of 
Mr.  Punch.  Now,  in  the  Continent  of  Europe  there 
is  no  such  monotony.  Not  only  in  the  gardens  of  the 
Tuileries  but  in  the  Champs-Elys4es  a  young  spec- 
tator can  sit  thru  performance  after  performance  with- 
out fear  of  having  to  witness  the  same  piece.  Pimch 
appears  in  only  one  drama,  whereas  his  French  rival, 
Guignol,  in  his  time  plays  many  parts,  with  a  host  of 
other  characters  to  be  his  associates,  some  in  one 
piece  and  some  in  another.  And  the  several  plays 
are  adorned  with  a  variety  of  scenery.  Of  course,  there 
cannot  be  a  very  wide  range  of  subject;  and  always  is 
the  stick  a  prominent  feature  in  the  miniature  drama. 
There  are  a  certain  number  of  traditional  Guignol 
pieces,  handed  down  from  generation  to  generation. 
Some  of  these  have  been  printed  for  the  use  of  devoted 
students  of  the  drama,  and  some  are  to  be  had  in  little 
pamphlets  for  the  benefit  of  the  happy  French  chil- 
dren who  may  have  had  a  puppet  theater  with  its  dozen 
or  more  figures  presented  to  them  as  a  New  Year's 
gift.  There  is  in  the  Dramatic  Museum  of  Columbia 
University  the  manuscript  of  half  a  dozen  of  these  little 
plays,  written  out  (in  all  the  license  of  his  own  simpli- 
fied spelling)  by  the  incomparable  performer  who  was 
in  charge  of  the  leading  Guignol  in  the  Champs-Elys^es 
in  1867. 
It  is  rather  curious  that  the  English  puppet-show 

282 


PUNCH    AND    JUDY 

should  have  confined  itself  for  now  nearly  a  hundred 
years  to  the  unique  Punch  and  Judy,  when  the  puppet- 
shows  of  other  countries  have  a  changing  repertory. 
It  was  a  puppet  performance  of  a  German  perversion 
of  Marlowe's  'Doctor  Faustus'  which  first  introduced 
Goethe  to  the  Faust  legend.  George  Sand,  unlike  the 
great  German  poet  in  most  ways,  was  yet  like  him 
in  her  delight  in  the  puppet-show.  In  her  country 
place  at  Nohant,  she  had  a  tiny  theater  of  her  own 
for  which  she  dressed  all  the  puppets,  while  her  son 
Maurice  carved  the  heads,  painted  the  scenery,  devised 
the  plays,  and  improvised  the  dialog.  Maurice  Sand 
it  was,  sometimes  alone,  but  occasionally  with  the  aid 
of  a  friend,  who  manipulated  the  little  figures  and  be- 
stowed upon  them  a  momentary  vitality.  His  mother 
persuaded  him  to  write  out  a  dozen  of  the  more  suc- 
cessful of  his  little  plays  for  puppets  and  to  publish 
them;  and  this  volume,  the  'Theatre  des  Marionnettes 
a  Nohant,'  appeared  in  1876.  George  Sand  herself 
wrote  a  delightful  account  of  the  humble  beginnings 
of  this  famous  puppet-show,  and  described  how  there 
came  in  time  to  be  all  sorts  of  ingenious  improvements 
for  achieving  spectacular  effects. 

She  declared  that  the  puppet-show  is  not  what  it 
is  vainly  thought,  because  it  demands  an  art  of  a 
special  kind,  not  only  in  the  construction  of  the  little 
figures  themselves,  but  more  especially  in  the  story 
which  these  Httle  figures  are  to  interpret.  She  held 
that  the  particular  field  of  the  puppet  playwright- 
performer  was  to  be  foimd  iu  the  dramatization  of 

283 


A   BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

protracted  fantastic  romances,  abounding  in  comic 
characters  and  in  comic  episodes  aad  gratifying  the 
fundamental  human  liking  for  long-drawn  tales  of 
adventure  and  for  fantastic  fairy-stories.  She  found 
in  her  son's  acted  narratives  a  rest  from  reality,  a  re- 
lease from  the  oppression  of  every-day  life,  an  excur- 
sion into  a  realm  of  fancy  and  of  legend — even  if  the 
legend  was  itself  a  fanciful  invention  of  the  improvis- 
ing performer.  And  she  declared  that  she  liked  the 
puppet  playhouse  in  her  own  home,  because  it  was  a 
domestic  and  fireside  pleasure,  which  could  be  enjoyed 
without  the  exertion  imposed  by  a  visit  to  a  real 
theater.  Obviously  she  found  as  much  delight  in 
being  a  spectator — after  having  been  a  costumer — as 
her  son  did  in  being  the  author  and  operator  of  the 
spectacle. 

IV 

There  is  one  note  to  be  made  upon  George  Sand's 
account  of  the  slow  development  of  the  puppet-show 
at  Nohant,  beginning  as  early  as  1847.  If  you  will 
look  at  any  set  of  Punch  and  Judy  figures  hung  up 
to-day  in  the  toy  store  to  tempt  the  eye  of  Young 
America,  you  will  discover  alongside  Mr.  Punch  and 
Mrs.  Judy,  Jack  Ketch  and  the  Devil,  a  strange  green 
figure  with  huge  jaws  and  double  rows  of  white  teeth. 
This  verdant  beast  has  a  body  like  all  other  Punch  and 
Judy  figures,  a  loose  cloth  funnel  to  slip  over  the  sleeve 
of  the  operator;  but  its  head  suggests  the  head  of  an 

284 


PUNCH    AND    JUDY 

alligator,  or  of  a  crocodile,  or  of  a  dragon.  Now,  if 
you  will  turn  to  the  classic  text  of  the  English  play  of 
Punch  and  Judy,  edited  with  a  learned  introduction 
and  an  abundance  of  scholarly  annotation  by  John 
Payne  Collier — at  least,  so  it  is  believed,  altho  the 
rare  little  book  is  anonymous — ^you  will  find  no  men- 
tion of  any  strange  beast  of  this  sort.  Collier's  text 
of  the  play  is  adorned  by  two  dozen  illustrations, 
etched  by  George  Cruikshank,  and  in  no  one  of  these 
plates  will  you  discover  any  crocodile,  or  alligator,  or 
dragon.  You  wiU  find  Toby,  the  dog,  who  still  sur- 
vives in  most  of  the  few  shows  to  be  seen  to-day  in 
the  streets  of  London;  and  you  will  find  Hector,  the 
gallant  steed  that  Mr.  Punch  mounts  with  difiiculty — 
and  it  is  sad  to  have  to  record  that  Hector  is  no  longer 
in  the  service  of  Mr.  Punch.  In  fact,  one  devoted  ad- 
mirer of  puppet-shows,  whose  memory  goes  back 
nearly  fifty  years,  is  ready  to  declare  that  he  has  never 
laid  eyes  on  Hector — except  in  Cruikshank's  illustra- 
tions. But  Mr.  Punch,  deprived  of  the  privilege  of 
bestriding  Hector,  now  enjoys  the  fiercer  delight  of 
overcoming  the  green-eyed  alligator. 

Here  we  have  a  question  of  profound  historic  inter- 
est. Whence  came  the  strange  beast  with  the  wide 
jaws  ?  And  here  is  where  George  Sand's  pleasant  paper 
is  a  very  present  help  in  time  of  need.  She  tells  us 
that  her  son  besought  her  to  make  a  green  monster 
for  one  of  the  earhest  pieces  he  devised  for  her  puppet- 
figures.  She  did  as  she  was  bid,  and  she  sacrificed  a 
pair  of  blue  velvet  slippers  to  provide  the  marvelous 

285 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

creature  with  his  gently  smiling  jaws.  She  draws  at- 
tention to  the  fact  that  the  slippers  were  blue,  and  to 
the  further  fact  that  nevertheless  the  strange  beast 
was  always  called  the  Green  Monster.  And  here  may 
be  the  explanation  of  the  historic  mystery.  The  fame 
of  the  puppets  of  Nohant  was  borne  abroad;  they 
were  talked  about  all  thru  France;  and  they  were 
discussed  again  and  again  in  the  Parisian  newspapers. 
What  more  likely  than  that  one  of  the  professional 
puppet  players  should  have  seen  the  infinite  possibili- 
ties of  the  Green  Monster,  and  should  have  perceived 
its  novel  fascination  for  children?  Thereupon  he 
borrowed  it  for  his  own  performances.  Certainly  it  is 
that  the  Green  Monster  is  a  character  in  at  least  one 
of  the  manuscript  plays  preserved  in  the  Dramatic 
Museum  of  Colimibia  University,  and  written  out 
half  a  century  ago.  Probably  the  Green  Monster 
strayed  from  the  puppet-show  of  the  Champs-Elys6es 
sooner  or  later  to  one  of  the  toy  stores  of  Paris  at  the 
request  of  some  boy  who  desired  it  for  his  own.  When 
the  Green  Monster  had  elected  domicile  in  the  stores 
of  Paris,  he  was  soon  appropriated  by  the  toy-makers 
of  Germany  for  export  to  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States. 
(1912.) 


286 


XVII 
THE  PUPPET-PLAY,  PAST  AND  PRESENT 


THE  PUPPET-PLAY,  PAST  AND  PRESENT 


In  her  charming  and  instructive  account  of  the  inge- 
nious puppet-shows  with  which  her  son  Maurice  used 
to  amuse  himself  and  her  guests  at  Nohant  haK  a  cen- 
tury ago,  George  Sand  records  the  fact  that  the  erudite 
scholar,  Magnan,  who  wrote  a  learned  history  of  the 
puppet-show  from  the  remotest  antiquity,  did  not  dis- 
criminate sharply  between  the  two  entirely  different 
kinds  of  little  figures,  both  of  which  are  carelessly  called 
puppets  in  English,  and  marionettes  in  French.  One 
class  comprises  these  empty  and  flexible  figures  which 
are  animated  by  the  thumb  and  two  fingers  of  the  per- 
former who  exhibits  them  by  holding  his  hands  above 
his  head,  as  in  the  'Punch  and  Judy'  show.  The  other 
contains  the  larger  dolls,  suspended  on  wires  (which 
are  supposed  to  be  invisible)  and  manipulated  by  one 
or  more  performers  overhead,  who  give  life  to  these 
figures  by  jerking  the  various  strings  as  the  action  of 
the  play  may  require.  These  last  are  the  true  marion- 
ettes; and  for  the  first  we  have,  unfortunately,  no  dis- 
tinctive name.  It  is  greatly  to  be  regretted  that  the 
two  very  different  types  of  puppets  are  not  set  apart 
from  each  other  satisfactorily  by  the  contributor  of 
the  article  on  marionettes  in  the  latest  edition  of  the 
'Encyclopedia  Britannica.' 

289 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

Each  of  these  two  sorts  of  puppets  has  an  interest 
of  its  own;  and  each  of  them  has  its  special  and  peculiar 
relation  to  the  drama.  Both  of  them  have  a  long  and 
honorable  history,  and  can  be  traced  back  in  the  scanty- 
records  of  a  remote  antiquity;  altho  it  seems  more 
likely  that  the  true  marionette — the  little  figure  moved 
by  wires  from  overhead — is  the  older  of  the  two, 
antedating  by  many  centuries  the  Punch  and  Judy  fig- 
ure, which  owes  its  abrupt  and  awkward  movements 
to  the  human  thmnb  and  fingers.  Both  classes  are 
to  be  found  to-day  all  over  the  world,  not  only  in  the 
cities  of  civilization,  but  in  unsuspected  nooks  and 
comers  on  all  the  shores  of  all  the  seven  seas.  In 
Turkey,  for  example,  under  the  name  of  Karaguez, 
there  is  a  Punch  and  Judy  of  enormous  popularity  and 
of  doubtful  decency,  while  in  Siam  there  are  marion- 
ettes which  perform  religious  plays  of  traditional  ap- 
peal. Apparently  the  puppet-show  of  one  type  or  the 
other  satisfies  in  its  fashion  that  dramatic  instinct 
which  every  people  possesses  in  greater  or  less  intensity. 

Both  kinds  of  puppet-show  flourish  in  France,  and 
have  there  been  lifted  to  a  more  elevated  plane  of  art; 
and  both  kinds  retain  their  popularity  in  Italy,  altho 
in  an  humbler  form.  The  French  are  inveterate  art- 
ists; and  they  are  like  the  Greeks  in  desiring  to  do  all 
things  decently  and  in  order.  The  Italians  have,  per- 
haps, a  stronger  native  gift  for  the  drama  and  they 
are  ready  to  enjoy  a  simpler  and  more  primitive  puppet- 
play.  It  is  from  Italy  that  we  who  speak  English 
have  derived  our  Punch  and  Judy.    Mr.  Punch  is  a 

290 


3 


s 

o 

P4 

as 


o 


kS" 


THE   PUPPET-PLAY 

direct  descendant  of  that  favorite  figure  of  robust 
Neapolitan  farce,  Pulcinella;  and  so  is  the  French  Poli- 
chinelle.  And  in  Italy  to-day  the  true  marionettes 
have  an  even  broader  popularity  than  the  Punch  and 
Judy  figures.  The  Italians  who  have  lately  flocked  to 
America  in  their  thousands,  until  New  York  now  con- 
tains more  of  them  than  Venice,  have  imported  in  the 
original  package  the  legendary  puppet-show  setting 
forth  the  romantic  stories  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  of 
the  early  Renascence.  We  look  upon  Mr.  Punch  as 
comic;  but  the  Italians  take  their  pleasure  seriously 
and  the  marionettes  in  their  puppet-shows  to  be  seen 
in  New  York  are  truly  heroic,  and  not  infrequently 
highly  tragic. 

In  the  interesting  discussion  of  'Medieval  Story,'  in 
which  Professor  W.  W.  Lawrence  of  Columbia  Univer- 
sity has  traced  the  influence  of  various  ideals  of  the 
Middle  Ages  upon  our  modem  social  organization,  he 
has  a  striking  description  of  the  marionette  perform- 
ances which  the  exiles  of  Italy  have  brought  with  them 
to  America.  "Any  one  who  walks  thru  the  Italian 
quarter  of  New  York  City  in  the  evening  may  notice 
over  a  doorway  an  illuminated  sign,  'Theater  of  Mar- 
ionettes.' If  his  curiosity  tempts  him  inside,  into  the 
low  room  crowded  with  enthusiastic  spectators,  he  will 
see,  on  a  rude  stage,  a  group  of  puppets  almost  as  large 
as  life,  representing  knights  and  ladies,  acting  out  a 
little  drama  in  response  to  the  jerking  of  strings  fast- 
ened to  their  arms,  and  of  iron  rods  firmly  fixed  in 
their  heads.    The  warriors  are  gorgeously  attired  in 

291 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

shining  armor  and  plumed  helmets;  and  the  ladies 
have  wonderful  costumes  of  bright  colors,  with  a  great 
deal  of  embroidery  and  decoration.  An  Italian  in 
shirt-sleeves  in  the  wings  at  the  side  of  the  stage 
speaks  their  lines  for  them,  with  all  the  elocutionary 
floiu-ishes  which  he  can  command.  Fiercely  immobile 
as  to  expression,  but  most  active  as  to  arms  and  legs, 
these  manikins  march  about,  soliloquize,  make  love, 
and  debate  in  council.  But  it  is  their  battles  which 
arouse  the  greatest  enthusiasm  among  the  audience; 
and,  indeed,  these  are  fought  in  a  way  that  is  a  joy  to 
see.  Then  it  is  that  heroic  deeds  are  done — tin  swords 
resound  upon  tin  armor,  helmets  are  battered  about 
and  knocked  off,  dust  rises  from  the  field,  the  valiant 
dead  fall  in  staring  heaps.  At  such  moments  the  spec- 
tators can  hardly  restrain  themselves  from  emotion, 
yet  the  story  is  well  known  to  them — ^perhaps  some 
one  sitting  near  by  will  volunteer  to  explain  it,  assert- 
ing that  he  has  known  it  ever  since  he  was  a  boy  and 
that  he  has  read  it  all  in  a  book  which  he  has  at  home, 
called  'Reah  di  Franci.'  It  is  a  version  of  the  old  tale 
of  Charlemagne  and  his  knights,  which,  after  traveling 
far  from  its  native  home  in  France,  was  taken  up  by 
the  Italian  people  many  centuries  ago,  and  made  so 
much  their  own  that  few  heroes  have  been  closer  to 
their  hearts  than  Roland,  or  as  they  call  him,  Orlando. 
Even  in  their  homes  in  the  New  World  they  still  cele- 
brate him,  so  that  the  very  newsboys  in  the  streets  of 
modem  America  are  keeping  alive  the  heroic  tradi- 
tions of  the  age  of  Charlemagne." 

292 


A  vSicilian  marionette  show 
Prom  "By  Italian  Seas,"  by  Ernest  C.  Peixotto 


THE    PUPPET-PLAY 


II 

When  we  compare  the  account  which  Professor  Law- 
rence has  here  given  of  the  ItaHan  puppet-shows  in 
New  York  with  the  description  of  these  same  perform- 
ances in  their  native  land  half  a  century  ago,  which  we 
find  in  the  'Roba  di  Roma'  of  W.  W.  Story,  the  Ameri- 
can sculptor-poet,  we  perceive  that  there  has  been 
little  modification  of  method  in  the  past  threescore 
years.  Story  studied  all  sides  of  the  Roman  populace, 
and  he  maintained  that  nothing  was  more  character- 
istically Italian  than  the  marionette  theater.  He  tells 
us  that  the  love  for  the  acting  of  burattini  [or  puppets] 
is  universal  among  the  lower  classes  thruout  Italy, 
and  in  some  cities,  especially  in  Genoa,  no  pains  are 
spared  "in  their  costume,  construction,  and  movement 
to  render  them  lifelike.  They  are  made  of  wood,  gen- 
erally from  two  to  three  feet  in  height,  with  very  large 
heads,  and  supernatural  glaring  eyes  that  never  wink, 
and  are  clad  in  aU  the  splendor  of  tinsel,  velvet,  and 
steel.  Their  joints  are  so  flexible  that  the  least  weight 
or  strain  upon  them  effects  a  dislocation,  and  they  are 
moved  by  wires  attached  to  their  heads  and  extremi- 
ties. The  largest  are  only  about  half  the  height  of  a 
man,  yet  as  the  stage  and  all  the  appointments  and 
scenery  are  upon  the  same  scale  of  proportion,  the  eye 
is  soon  deceived,  and  accepts  them  as  of  life-size.  But 
if  by  accident  a  hand  or  arm  of  one  of  the  wire-pullers 
appears  from  behind  the  scenes  or  descends  below  the 

293 


A   BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

hangings,  it  startles  you  by  its  portentous  size;  and 
the  audience  in  the  stage-boxes  instead  of  reducing 
the  burattini  to  Lilhputians  by  contrast,  as  they  lean 
forward,  become  themselves  Brobdingnagians,  with 
elephantine  hands  and  heads." 

Story  insisted  that  there  is  nothing  ludicrous  to  an 
Italian  audience  in  the  performances  of  these  diminutive 
men  and  women.  On  the  contrary,  nothing  is  more 
serious  both  to  the  spectators  and  to  the  unforeseen 
operators.  In  fact,  he  declared,  no  hmnan  being  could 
be  so  serious  as  these  tiny  performers.  "Their  coun- 
tenances are  as  solemn  as  death,  and  more  unchanging 
than  the  face  of  a  clock.  Their  terrible  gravity  when, 
with  drooping  heads  and  collapsed  arms,  they  fix  on 
you  their  great  goggle-eyes  is  at  times  ghastly.  The 
plays  they  perform  are  mostly  heroic,  romantic,  and 
historical.  They  stoop  to  nothing  which  is  not  start- 
ling in  incident,  imposing  in  style,  and  grandiose  in 
movement.  And  the  Italian  audience  listens  with  a 
grave  and  profound  interest,  as  tho  the  performers  were 
not  mere  puppets,  but  actually  the  heroes  they  are  sup- 
posed to  be.  The  inflated  and  extravagant  discourse 
of  the  characters  is  accepted  at  its  face  value;  to  the 
spectators  it  is  grand  and  noble.  And  the  foreign  vis- 
itor must  control  any  desire  he  may  feel  to  smile  at  the 
extraordinary  spectacle  he  is  witnessing,  and  at  the 
marvelous  rodomontade  he  is  hearing.  To  laugh  out 
loud  at  one  of  these  heroic  puppet-plays  would  be  as 
indecorous  as  to  indulge  in  laughter  during  a  church 


service." 


294 


THE    PUPPET-PLAY 

Incidental  to  the  heroic  dramas  which  the  puppets 
play  are  interludes  of  ballet-dancing  like  those  which 
are  intercalated,  more  or  less  adroitly,  into  the  grand 
opera  performed  by  full-grown  men  and  women.  The 
Itahans  are  bom  pantomimists,  and  they  are  accom- 
plished dancers.  Therefore,  there  is  no  reason  for  sur- 
prise that  human  pantomime  and  human  dancing  are 
imitated  in  the  marionette  theaters.  There  is  reason 
for  surprise,  however,  that  Story  did  not  perceive 
clearly  the  advantages  possessed  by  the  dancing  pup- 
pets over  the  dancers  of  more  soHd  flesh  and  blood. 
He  found  something  comic  in  the  pantomime  of  the 
puppets,  "whose  every  motion  is  effected  by  wires,  who 
imitate  the  gestures  of  despair  with  hands  that  can- 
not shut,  and,  with  a  wooden  gravity  of  countenance, 
throw  their  bodies  into  terrible  contortions  to  make 
up  for  the  lack  of  expression  in  the  face."  In  mere 
pantomime  it  is  probable  that  the  puppets  would  labor 
under  a  serious  disability,  for  if  a  performer  cannot  use 
his  voice,  he  needs  facial  expression  to  assist  the  ges- 
tures by  which  only  can  he  then  convey  his  meaning 
to  the  other  performers  and  to  the  spectators.,.  Per- 
haps it  is  not  too  much  to  assert  that  the  puppet-show 
is  not  the  proper  place  for  pantomime. 

Ill 

We  need  not  wonder  that  Story  admitted  their  danc- 
ing to  be  superior  to  their  pantomime.  Yet  he  failed 
to  appreciate  the  true  cause  of  this  superiority,  and  he 

295 


A    BOOK   ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

was  inclined  to  comment  upon  the  dancing  of  the 
burattini  in  a  somewhat  satiric  fashion.  He  tells  us 
how  the  principal  dancer  suddenly  appears,  "knocks 
her  wooden  knees  together,  and  jerking  her  head 
about,  salutes  the  audience  with  a  smile  quite  as 
artificial  as  we  could  see  in  the  best  trained  of  her 
fleshly  rivals."  But  this  artificial  smile  must  have 
been  fixed  and  permanent  on  the  features  of  this  dimin- 
utive dancer — or  else  the  Roman-American  essayist 
merely  imagined  its  presence.  "Then,  with  a  masterly 
ease,  after  describing  air-cirlces  with  her  toes  far  higher 
than  her  head  and  poising  herself  in  impossible  posi- 
tions, she  bounds  or  rather  flies  forward  with  super- 
human Hghtness,  performs  feats  of  choreography  to 
awaken  envy  in  Cerito  and  drive  Elssler  to  despair, 
and,  poising  on  her  pointed  toe  that  disdains  to  touch 
the  floor,  turns  never-ending  pirouettes  on  nothing  at 
all,  till  at  last,  throwing  both  her  wooden  hands  for- 
ward, she  suddenly  comes  to  a  swift  stop  to  receive 
your  applause." 

This  description  is  unsympathetic,  and  it  induces 
the  surmise  that  the  operator  of  the  burattini  at  the 
performance  described  was  not  a  master  of  his  art  and 
did  not  know  how  to  profit  by  the  possibilities  of  that 
art.  Yet  one  of  Story's  phrases  serves  to  explain  why 
the  suspended  puppet  is  superbly  qualified  to  excel  in 
ballet-dancing;  that  phrase  is  the  one  which  credits 
the  dancing  doll  with  "supernatural  lightness."  A 
skilful  operator  of  the  wires  which  bestow  life  and 
movement  and  grace,  is  able  to  imitate  easily  and  ex- 

296 


THE    PUPPET-PLAY 

quisitely  the  most  difficult  feats  of  the  human  dancer. 
If  he  is  sufficiently  adroit  he  robs  his  suspended  fig- 
ure of  all  awkwardness,  and  he  dowers  her  with  a  float- 
ing ethereality  surpassing  that  attainable  by  any  living 
performer.  Now,  this  floating  ethereality  is  precisely 
the  quality  which  gives  us  most  pleasure  when  we 
are  spectators  at  the  performance  of  a  really  fine 
ballet.  It  is  the  supreme  art  of  the  great  dancer  to 
soar  lightly  aloft,  seeming  to  spurn  the  stage  and  to 
abide  in  the  air.  Only  very  rarely  is  this  illusion  pos- 
sible to  the  merely  human  dancer;  and  when  achieved 
it  is  but  fleeting.  Yet  this  illusion  is  absolutely  within 
the  control  of  the  manipulator  of  the  puppet-dancers. 
He  can  make  them  execute  feats  of  levitation,  achieva- 
ble only  by  the  most  marvelously  gifted  and  by  the 
most  arduously  trained  of  human  dancers. 

Of  course,  the  skilful  performer  must  carefully  avoid 
swinging  his  tiny  figures  aimlessly  thru  the  air.  He 
must  limit  the  feats  that  he  permits  them  to  accom- 
plish to  those  which  can  be  actually  accomplished  by 
human  beings,  altho  he  can  do  easily  what  the  human 
beings  can  achieve  only  with  more  or  less  obvious 
effort,  and  he  can  impart  a  volatile  elasticity  a  little 
beyond  the  power  of  any  human  being  however  fav- 
ored by  Terpsichore.  When  'Salome'  was,  for  a 
season,  the  sensation  of  the  hour,  it  was  produced  by 
Holden's  marionettes;  and  it  afforded  a  delightful 
spectacle  long  to  be  remembered  by  all  who  had  the 
fehcity  of  beholding  it.  Whatever  of  vulgarity  or  of 
grossness  there  might  be  in  the  play  itself,  or  in  the 

297 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

Dance  of  the  Seven  Veils,  was  purged  away  by  the  single 
fact  that  all  the  performers  were  puppets.  So  dex- 
terous was  the  manipulation  of  the  unseen  operator  who 
controlled  the  wires  and  strings  which  gave  life  to  the 
seductive  Salome  as  she  circled  around  the  stage  in 
most  bewitching*  fashion,  and  so  precise  and  accurate 
was  the  imitation  of  a  human  dancer,  that  the  recep- 
tive spectator  could  not  but  feel  that  here  at  last  the 
play  of  doubtful  propriety  had  found  its  only  fit 
stage  and  its  only  proper  performer.  The  memory  of 
that  exhibition  is  a  perennial  pleasure  to  all  who  pos- 
sess it.  A  thing  of  beauty  it  was;  and  it  abides  in 
remembrance  as  a  joy  forever.  It  revealed  the  art  of 
the  puppet-show  at  its  sunmiit.  And  the  art  itself 
was  eternally  justified  by  that  one  performance  of  the 
highest  technical  skill  and  of  the  utmost  dehcacy  of 
taste. 

If  the  most  marvelous  exploits  of  terpsichorean  art, 
almost  inexecutable  by  the  human  toes  and  the  human 
legs  of  living  dancers,  are  capable  of  reproduction  by 
puppets  skilfully  manipulated  by  the  puller  of  the 
wires  and  strings  whereby  the  little  figures  are  sus- 
pended, so  also  are  the  dexterous  feats  of  the  juggler. 
One  of  the  specialties  of  the  sole  surviving  puppet- 
show  of  this  sort  in  the  Champs-Elys^es  is  the  per- 
formance of  a  juggler  who  tosses  aloft  and  catches  in 
turn  a  number  of  glittering  balls.  The  delicate  bal- 
ancing of  the  tight-rope  walker,  with  her  frequent 
pirouettes  on  her  toes,  and  with  her  surprising  summer- 
sets, is  also  one  of  the  exhibitions  in  which  the  puppet 

298 


THE    PUPPET-PLAY 

can  defy  the  rivalry  of  any  living  executant,  however 
skilful  in  the  art.  At  the  circus  we  feel  that  the  tight- 
rope dancer  might  fall,  whereas  at  the  puppet-show  we 
know  with  certainty  that  any  fatal  mishap  is  impossi- 
ble. In  Holden's  marionette  program  the  miniature 
mimicry  of  humanity  was  carried  to  the  utmost  edge 
of  the  possible;  and  no  item  on  his  bill  of  fare  was  more 
delectable  than  the  series  of  scenes  in  which  the  tra- 
ditional Clown  and  Pantaloon  played  tricks  on  the 
traditional  Policeman,  and  in  which  they  joined  forces 
in  belaboring  an  inoffensive  donkey.  As  the  unfor- 
tunate quadruped  was  also  a  puppet,  there  was  no 
painful  strain  on  our  sympathy. 

IV 

If  a  performance  by  puppets  deprived  'Salome '  of  its 
vulgar  grossness  by  removing  it  outside  the  arena  of 
humanity,  so  to  speak,  and  by  relegating  it  to  an  im- 
real  world  beyond  the  strict  diocese  of  the  conscience, 
so  a  performance  by  puppets  of  a  passion-play  or  of 
any  other  drama  in  which  the  Deity  has  perforce  to 
appear  as  a  character,  is  thereby  reheved  of  any  tinc- 
ture of  irreverence.  We  no  longer  see  a  diviae  being 
interpreted  by  a  human  being.  We  cannot  help  feel- 
ing that  all  the  persons  in  the  play,  whether  they  dwell 
in  heaven  or  on  earth,  are  equally  remote  from  our 
common  humanity.  And  therefore  we  need  not  be 
surprised  when  we  discover  that  the  marionette  has 
long  been  allowed  to  appear  in  rehgious  drama.    In- 

299 


A    BOOK   ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

deed,  it  appears  probable  that  the  very  name  marion- 
ette is  directly  derived  from  the  name  of  the  Virgin. 

Very  early  in  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church 
were  the  puppets  permitted  to  perform  passion-plays 
and  little  dramas  derived  from  the  stories  contained 
both  in  the  New  and  the  Old  Testaments.  In  England 
imder  Elizabeth  and  James  religious  puppet-shows  of 
this  kind  went  wandering  about  the  kingdom,  taking 
into  the  smallest  villages  an  entertainment  which  would 
afford  to  the  rural  inhabitants  the  same  kind  of  pleasant 
instruction  which  the  dwellers  in  the  larger  towns  had 
in  the  more  elaborate  and  long-drawn  mysteries  per- 
formed by  the  trade-guilds  on  the  Corpus  Christi  day. 
That  masterly  rogue  Autolycus  in  the  'Winter's  Tale' 
tells  us  that  in  his  time  he  had  been  on  the  road  with 
"a  motion  of  the  Prodigal  Son" — and  a  motion  was  the 
EUzabethan  term  for  a  marionette-exhibition.  In  like 
manner  one  of  the  characters  in  Ben  Jonson's  'Every 
Man  out  of  His  Humor'  speaks  of  "a  new  motion  of 
the  city  of  Nineveh,  with  Jonas  and  the  whale."  Of 
course,  the  puppet  performers,  like  the  grown-up  actors, 
did  not  long  confine  themselves  to  sacred  themes;  they 
ventured  also  into  contemporary  history.  A  puppet 
showman  who  appears  in  Ben  Jonson's  'Bartholomew 
Fair'  tells  us  that  a  certain  motion  setting  forth  the 
mysterious  Gunpowder  Plot,  was  "  a  get-penny." 

Story  described  one  puppet-play  which  he  saw  in  a 
little  village  on  the  main  road  from  Rome  to  Naples, 
and  which  had  for  its  central  figure  Judas  Iscariot. 
But  here  again  his  attitude  is  unsympathetic,  perhaps 

300 


A  Neapolitan  Punchinella 
From  "By  Italian  S«as,"  by  Ernest  C.  Peixotto 


THE    PUPPET-PLAY 

because  the  perfonnance  was  clumsy.  "The  kiss  of 
Judas,  when,  after  sliding  along  the  stage,  he  suddenly- 
turned  with  a  sidelong  jerk  and  rapped  the  other 
wooden  puppet's  head  with  his  own,  as  well  as  the  sub- 
sequent scene  in  which  he  goes  out  and  hangs  himself, 
beggar  description."  Yet  the  expatriated  American 
spectator  honestly  recorded  that  the  Italian  spectators 
"looked  and  listened  with  great  gravity,  seemed  to  be 
highly  edified,  and  certainly  showed  no  signs  of  seeing 
anything  ludicrous  in  the  performance."  We  may 
venture  the  suggestion  that  even  the  sophisticated 
sculptor-poet  himself  would  have  seen  nothing  ludi- 
crous in  this  performance  if  the  operator  of  Judas  had 
been  as  skilful  as  the  operator  of  Salome  in  Holden's 
marionettes. 

A  few  years  ago  in  Paris  one  of  the  younger  poets 
wrote  a  passion-play  which  was  performed  during  Lent 
by  a  company  of  dolls,  designed  and  dressed  in  fit  and 
appropriate  costumes  by  an  artist  friend  familiar  with 
the  manners  and  customs  of  the  Holy  Land.  While 
the  wires  were  managed  by  expert  hands,  the  words  of 
the  dialog  were  spoken  by  the  poet  himself,  and  by 
two  or  three  other  poets  who  came  to  his  aid.  This 
must  have  been  a  seemly  spectacle,  and  it  won  careful 
consideration  from  more  than  one  of  the  most  eminent 
dramatic  critics  of  France.  Here  we  may  find  a  use- 
ful suggestion  for  those  who  wish  to  see  certain  plays 
by  modem  dramatic  poets,  in  which  the  Deity  is  a 
necessary  character — ^Rostand's  'Samaritaine,'  for  one, 
and  Hauptmann's  'Hannele,'  for  another.    Many  of 

301 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

the  devout  have  a  natural  repugnance  to  any  perform- 
ance on  the  stage  (with  its  materialistic  environment 
and  its  often  sordid  conditions)  which  calls  for  the 
impersonation  of  a  divine  being  by  an  actor  of  ordinary 
flesh  and  blood.  Yet  if  these  same  plays  were  rever- 
ently performed  by  marionettes  the  aroma  of  irrever- 
ence would  be  removed.  It  might  even  be  possible  to 
reproduce  in  the  puppet-show  not  a  little  of  the  solemn 
religious  effect  which  is  felt  by  all  visitors  to  the  passion- 
play  at  Oberammergau. 

(1912.) 


302 


XVIII 

SHADOW-PANTOMIME  WITH  ALL  THE 
MODERN  IMPROVEMENTS 


SHADOW-PANTOMIME  WITH  ALL  THE  MODERN 
IMPROVEMENTS 


An  American^  improving  on  a  suggestion  of  a  French- 
man, has  declared  that  "language  was  given  to  man  to 
conceal  his  thoughts — and  to  woman  to  express  her 
emotions."  Unfortunately,  language  is  so  often  in- 
exact that  even  when  it  is  sufficient  to  express  emo- 
tion, it  is  not  precise  enough  even  to  conceal  thought. 
Sometimes  a  term  is  wholly  devoid  of  truth,  as  when 
we  call  a  certain  solid  a  "lead-pencil,"  which  contains 
no  lead,  and  when  we  label  a  certain  hquid  "soda- 
water,"  which  contains  no  soda.  Sometimes  the  term 
is  so  vague  that  it  may  mean  all  things  to  all  men. 
Who,  for  example,  would  be  bold  enough  to  insist  on 
his  own  definition  of  "romanticism"?  Sometimes 
again  the  term  covers  two  or  three  things  which  de- 
mand a  sharper  differentiation.  This  is  the  case  with 
the  compound  word  "shadow-pantomime."  It  is  the 
only  name  for  three  distinct  things. 

First,  there  is  the  representation  by  the  dark  pro- 
file of  the  human  hand  upon  a  wall  or  a  screen,  of 
human  heads,  and  of  animal  figures,  either  by  an  adroit 
arrangement  of  the  fingers  alone,  or  by  the  aid  of  ad- 
justed shapes  of  cardboard,  so  as  to  suggest  a  hat  on 

305 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

the  head  and  a  pipe  in  the  mouth  and  other  needed 
accessories;  this  primitive  entertainment  is  sometimes 
styled  "shadowgraphy." 

Second,  there  is  the  full-sized  silhouette  of  a  human 
figure,  due  to  the  shadow  cast  by  the  body  standing 
before  a  lamp,  and  magnified  or  diminished  as  it  ap- 
proaches or  recedes  the  spectators.  This  is  the  familiar 
parlor  amusement  which  Sir  James  Barrie  cleverly 
utilized  with  dramatic  effect  in  the  final  act  of  his 
'Professor's  Love-Story,'  when  one  of  the  characters, 
standing  outside  a  house,  sees  the  black  profiles  of 
other  characters  projected  clearly  on  the  drawn  shade 
of  the  window  before  which  he  is  placed. 

Then,  thirdly,  there  is  the  true  shadow-pantomime, 
called  by  the  French  "Chinese  shadows,"  ombres  chi- 
noises,  in  which  the  tiny  figures,  made  either  of  flat  card- 
board or  of  metal,  are  exhibited  behind  a  translucent 
screen  and  before  a  strong  light.  This  is  by  far  the 
most  interesting  and  the  most  important  of  the  three 
widely  different  kinds  of  semi-dramatic  entertainment, 
often  carelessly  confounded  together  even  in  the  special 
treatises  devoted  to  this  humble  art.  In  France  these 
Chinese  shadows  have  been  popular  for  more  than 
a  hundred  years,  since  it  was  in  the  eighteenth  century 
that  the  performer  who  took  the  name  of  S^raphin 
established  his  Httle  theater  and  won  the  favor  of  the 
younger  members  of  the  royal  family  by  his  presenta- 
tion of  the  alluring  spectacle,  the  rudimentary  little 
piece,  still  popular  with  children,  and  still  known  by 
its  original  title,  the  'Broken  Bridge.' 

306 


SHADOW-PANTOMIME 

It  may  not  be  fanciful  to  infer  that  the  immediate 
suggestion  for  this  spectacle  was  derived  from  the 
contemporary  vogue  of  the  silhouette  itself,  this  por- 
trait in  solid  black  taking  its  name  from  the  Frenchman 
who  was  minister  of  finance  in  1759.  At  all  events,  it 
was  in  1770  that  S^raphin  began  to  amuse  the  children 
of  Paris;  and  it  was  more  than  a  century  thereafter 
that  M.  Lemercier  de  Neuville  elaborated  his  ingeni- 
ously articulated  Pwpazzi  noirs.  It  was  a  little  later 
still  that  Caran  d'Ache  delighted  the  more  sophisticated 
children  of  a  larger  growth,  who  were  wont  to  assemble 
at  the  Chat  Noir,  with  the  striking  series  of  military 
silhouettes  resuscitating  the  mighty  Napoleonic  epic. 
And  it  was  at  the  Chat  Noir  again  that  Riviere  re- 
vealed the  further  possibilities  latent  in  shadow-pan- 
tomime, and  to  be  developed  by  the  aid  of  colored 
backgrounds  supplied  by  a  magic  lantern.  Restricted 
as  the  sphere  of  the  shadow-pantomime  necessarily 
is,  the  native  artistic  impulse  of  the  French  has  been 
rarely  better  disclosed  than  by  their  surprising  elabora- 
tion of  a  form  of  amusement,  seemingly  fitted  only  to 
charm  the  infant  mind,  into  an  entertainment  satis- 
factory to  the  richly  developed  esthetic  sense  of  mature 
Parisian  playgoers.  Just  as  the  rustic  revels  of  remote 
villagers  contained  the  germ  out  of  which  the  Greeks 
were  able  to  develop  their  austere  and  elevating  trag- 
edy, and  just  as  the  modem  drama  was  evolved  in  the 
course  of  centuries  out  of  the  medieval  mysteries,  one 
source  of  which  we  may  discover  in  the  infant  Christ 
in  the  cradle  still  displayed  at  Christmastide  in  Chris- 

307 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

tian  churches  thruout  the  world,  so  the  simple  Chinese 
shadows  of  S^raphin  supplied  the  root  on  which  Parisian 
artists  were  able  to  graft  their  ingenious  improvements. 
The  little  spectacle  proffered  originally  by  S^raphin 
was  frankly  infantile  in  its  appeal,  and  the  'Broken 
Bridge'  is  as  plainly  adjusted  to  the  simple  likings  of 
the  child  as  is  the  lamentable  tragedy  of  Punch  and 
Judy  or  the  puppet-show  in  which  Polichinelle  exhibits 
his  hump  and  his  terpsichorean  agility.  The  two  arms 
of  the  broken  bridge  arch  over  a  little  stream  but  fail 
to  meet  in  the  center.  A  flock  of  ducks  crosses  leisurely 
from  one  bank  to  the  other.  A  laborer  appears  on  the 
left-hand  fragment  of  the  bridge  and  begins  to  swing 
his  pick  to  loosen  stones  at  the  end,  and  these  fragments 
are  then  seen  to  fall  into  the  water.  The  figure  of  the 
workman  is  articulated,  or  at  least  one  arm  is  on  a 
separate  piece  and  moves  on  a  pivot  so  that  a  hidden 
string  can  raise  the  pick  and  let  it  fall.  The  laborer 
sings  at  his  work;  and  in  France  he  indulges  in  the  tra- 
ditional lyric  about  the  Bridge  of  Avignon,  where  every- 
body dances  in  a  circle.  Then  a  traveler  appears  on 
the  right-hand  end  of  the  bridge.  He  hails  the  laborer, 
who  is  hard  of  hearing  at  first,  but  who  finally  asks 
him  what  he  wants.  The  traveler  explains  that  he 
wishes  to  cross  and  asks  how  he  can  do  this.  The 
laborer  keeps  on  picking  away,  and  sings  that  "the 
ducks  and  the  geese  they  all  swim  over."  The  irri- 
tated traveler  then  asks  how  far  it  is  across,  and  the 
laborer  again  sings,  this  time  to  the  effect  that  "when 
you're  in  the  middle  you're  half-way  over."    Then 

308 


The  broken  bridge 


Reproduced  by  permission  of  Hachette  &  Co.,  Paris 
Plan  showing  the  construction  of  a  shadow-picture  theater 


A    Hungarian    dancer.      This    explains    the 
mechanism  of  the  shadow  picture  opposite 

From  a  shadow  picture  by  Lemercier  de  Neuville 


A  Hungarian  dancer 


SHADOW-PANTOMIME 

the  traveler  inquires  how  deep  the  stream  may  be, 
and  he  gets  the  exasperating  response  in  song,  that 
if  he  will  only  throw  in  a  stone,  he'll  soon  find  the 
bottom.  This  dialog  bears  an  obvious  resemblance 
to  that  traditionally  associated  with  the  tune  of  the 
'Arkansaw  Traveler.' 

Then  a  boatman  appears,  rowing  his  Uttle  skiff,  his 
backbone  pivoted  so  that  his  body  can  move  to  and 
fro.  The  traveler  makes  a  bargain  with  him  and  is 
taken  across,  after  many  misadventures,  one  of  them 
with  a  crocodile,  which  opens  its  jaws  and  threatens  to 
engulf  the  boat — ^this  amphibious  beast  having  been 
a  recent  addition  to  the  original  playlet,  and  probably 
borrowed  from  the  Green  Monster  not  long  ago  added 
to  the  group  of  Punch  and  Judy  figures.  And  the  ex- 
citing conclusion  of  this  entrancing  spectacle  displays 
a  most  moral  appHcation  of  the  principle  of  poetic 
justice.  The  ill-natured  laborer  advances  too  far  out 
on  his  edge  of  the  broken  bridge,  and  detaches  a  large 
fragment.  As  this  tumbles  into  the  water  he  loses 
his  footing  and  falls  forward  himself,  only  to  be  in- 
stantly devoured  by  the  crocodile,  which  disappears 
with  its  unexpected  prey,  whereupon  the  placid  ducks 
and  geese  again  swim  over — and  the  curtain  falls. 

n 

There  are  a  score  of  other  Uttle  plays  like  the  'Broken 
Bridge,'  adroitly  adjusted  to  the  caliber  of  the  juvenile 
mind.    In  a  British  collection  may  be  found  a  piece 

309 


A    BOOK   ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

representing  a  succession  of  appalling  episodes  supposed 
to  take  place  in  a  'Haunted  House/  and  in  a  French 
manual  for  the  use  of  youthful  amateurs  may  be  dis- 
covered a  rudimentary  version  of  MoUdre's  '  Imaginary 
Invalid/  to  be  performed  by  silhouettes  with  articulated 
limbs.  Here  again  we  perceive  the  inaccuracy  of  the 
term  "shadow-pantomime/'  since  the  most  of  the 
figures  are  not  articulated,  and,  being  motionless,  they 
are  deprived  of  the  freedom  of  gesture  which  is  the  es- 
sential element  of  true  pantomime.  Moreover,  they 
are  all  made  to  take  part  in  various  dialogs,  and  this 
again  is  a  negation  of  the  fimdamental  principle  of 
pantomime,  which  ought  to  be  wordless.  Here  the 
French  term  "Chinese  shadows"  is  more  exact  and 
less  limiting  than  the  EngKsh  "shadow-pantomime." 
It  is  perhaps  a  pity  that  the  old-fashioned  term 
"gallanty-show,"  has  not  won  a  wider  acceptance  in 
English. 

The  little  pieces  due  to  S^raphin  and  his  humble 
followers  in  France  and  in  England,  devised  to  amuse 
children  only,  were  simple  enough  in  plot,  and  yet  they 
were  sufficient  to  suggest  to  admirers  of  this  unpretend- 
ing form  of  theatrical  art  plays  of  a  more  imposing  pro- 
portion. M.  Paul  Eudel,  the  art  critic,  has  published 
an  amply  illustrated  volume  in  which  he  collected 
the  fairy-pieces,  and  the  more  spectacular  melodramas 
composed  by  his  grandfather  in  the  first  quarter  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  in  the  dark  days  that  preceded 
Waterloo.  And  in  the  third  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  in  the  dark  days  that  preceded  Sedan,  M. 

310 


The  return  from  the  Bois  de  Boulogne 
Four  shadow  pictures  by  Caran  d'Ache 


/^\/^^^^^^^f^^^y^\^Py 


ililililllllH 


The  ballet 
From  a  shadow  picture  by  Lemercier  de  Neuville 


Reproduced  by  permission  of  Hachette  &  Co.,  Paris 

A  regiment  of  French  soldiers 
From  a  shadow  picture  by  R.  de  La  NeziSre 


SHADOW-PANTOMIME 

Lemercier  de  Neuville,  relinquishing  for  a  while  the 
Punch  and  Judy  puppets  which  he  called  Pwpazzi,  and 
which  he  had  exhibited  in  a  succession  of  gentle  carica- 
tures of  Parisian  personahties  with  a  mildly  Aristo- 
phanic  flavor  of  contemporary  satire,  turned  to  the 
familiar  Chinese  shadows  of  his  childhood  and  devised 
what  he  called  his  Pwpazzi  noirs,  animated  shadows. 
He  also  has  issued  a  collection  of  these  little  pieces 
with  a  full  explanation  of  the  method  of  performance 
and  with  half  a  hundred  illustrations,  revealing  all 
the  secrets  of  maneuvering  the  Httle  figures.  Indeed, 
Lemercier  de  Neuville's  manual  is  the  most  ample 
which  has  yet  appeared;  and  it  is  the  most  interesting 
in  that  he  was  at  once  his  own  playwright,  his  own 
designer  of  figures,  and  his  own  perfonner. 

As  the  grandfather  of  M.  Eudel  had  been  more  am- 
bitious than  S^raphin,  so  Lemercier  de  Neuville  was 
more  ambitious  than  the  elder  Eudel.  And  yet  his 
procedure  was  precisely  that  of  his  predecessors,  and 
he  did  not  in  any  way  modify  the  principles  of  the  art. 
All  he  did  was  to  elaborate  the  performance  by  the  use 
of  more  scenery,  of  more  spectacular  effects,  and  of 
more  numerous  characters.  He  introduced  a  company 
of  Spanish  dancers,  for  example,  and  he  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  throw  on  his  screen  the  sable  and  serrated  pro- 
file of  a  long  line  of  ballet  dancers.  He  followed  Eudel 
in  arranging  a  procession  of  animals,  rivaling  a  circus 
parade,  many  of  them  being  articulated  so  that  they 
could  make  the  appropriate  movements  of  their  jaws 
and  their  paws.    And  he  paid  special  attention  to  his 

311 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

silhouette  caricatures  of  contemporary  celebrities,  Zola 
for  one,  and  Sarah-Bemhardt  for  another. 

Then  the  Franco-Russian  draftsman,  who  called 
himself  Caran  d'Ache,  made  a  new  departure  and 
started  the  art  of  the  shadow-pantomime  in  a  new 
career.  He  called  his  figures  "French  shadows," 
ombres  frangaises,  and  he  surrendered  the  privilege  of 
articulating  his  figures  so  that  they  could  move.  At 
least,  he  refrained  from  this  except  on  rare  occasions, 
preferring  the  effect  of  immobility  and  relying  mainly 
upon  a  new  principle  not  before  employed  by  any  of 
his  predecessors.  He  made  a  specialty  of  long  lines 
and  of  large  masses  of  troops,  not  all  on  the  same  plane, 
but  presented  in  perspective.  He  chose  also  to  forgo 
the  aid  of  speech  and  his  figures  were  silent,  except 
when  some  officer  called  out  a  word  of  command,  or 
when  a  company  of  Cossacks  rode  past  singing  one  of 
the  wailing  lyrics  of  the  Caucasus  as  melancholy  as  the 
steppes. 

One  of  the  most  attractive  items  on  his  program  was 
a  representation  of  the  return  of  vehicles  and  eques- 
trians from  the  Bois  de  Boulogne  in  the  afternoon. 
Some  of  the  figures  were  merely  characteristic  types 
sharply  seized  and  outlined  with  all  the  artist's  mas- 
terly draftsmanship,  and  some  of  them  were  well-known 
personages  easily  recognizable  by  his  Parisian  spec- 
tators— Lesseps  on  horseback,  for  example,  and  Roche- 
fort  in  an  open  cab.  These  successive  figures  were 
simply  pushed  across  the  screen  one  after  another, 
each  of  them  as  motionless  as  a  statue,  the  men  fixed 

312 


bp   ^ 


C^    >, 


I— I     "^ 


S    fe 


•>. 


SHADOW-PANTOMIME 

in  one  attitude,  and  the  legs  of  the  horses  retaining 
always  the  same  position.  This  absence  of  animal 
movement  was,  of  course,  a  violation  from  the  facts 
of  life,  like  that  which  permits  the  painter  to  depict 
a  breaking  wave  or  a  sculptor  to  model  a  running  boy 
at  a  single  moment  of  the  movement.  Yet  this 
artistic  conver^^ion  was  immediately  acceptable  since 
the  spectator  received  a  simplified  impression  and  his 
attention  was  not  distracted  by  the  inevitable  jerki- 
ness  of  the  limbs  of  the  men  and  the  beasts. 

Caran  d' Ache's  masterpiece,  however — and  it  may 
honestly  be  styled  a  masterpiece — was  not  the  'Return 
from  the  Bois  de  Boulogne'  but  his  'Epopee,'  his  epic 
evocation  of  the  grand  army  of  Napoleon.  Single  fig- 
ures like  the  Little  Corporal  on  horseback,  and  like 
Murat  and  others  of  the  Emperor's  staff,  he  projected 
with  a  fidelity  and  a  veracity  of  accent  worthy  of 
Detaille  or  even  Meissonier.  Yet  fine  as  these  single 
figures  might  be,  they  were  only  what  had  been  at- 
tempted by  earUer  exponents  of  the  art — even  if  they 
were  more  impressive  than  had  been  achieved  by  any 
one  of  his  predecessors.  These  single  figures  were 
necessarily  presented  all  on  the  same  plane,  and  the 
startling  and  successful  innovation  of  the  Franco- 
Russian  draftsmanship  was  his  skilful  use  of  perspec- 
tive, a  device  which  had  not  occurred  to  any  of  those 
in  whose  footsteps  he  was  following,  even  Lemercier 
de  Neuville  having  presented  his  ballet  dancers  in  a 
flat  row.  What  Caran  d'Ache  did  was  to  bring  before 
us  company  after  company  of  the  Old  Guard,  and  troop 

313 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

after  troop  of  cuirassiers,  their  profiles  diminishing  in 
height  as  the  figures  receded  from  the  eye.  He  thus 
attained  to  an  effect  of  solidity  and  even  of  immensity, 
far  beyond  anything  ever  before  achieved  by  any  earUer 
exhibitor  of  shadows.  He  succeeded  in  suggesting 
space,  and  of  maneuvering  before  the  astonished  eyes 
of  the  entranced  spectators  a  vast  mass  of  men  imder 
arms,  marching  forward  resolutely  in  serried  ranks  to 
victory  or  to  death. 

The  late  Jules  Lemaitre,  the  most  open-minded  of 
French  dramatic  critics,  and  the  most  hospitable  in  his 
attitude  toward  the  minor  manifestations  of  theatric 
art,  has  recorded  that  this  Napoleonic  epic  of  Caran 
d'Ache  commimicated  to  him  not  only  an  emotion  of 
actual  grandeur,  but  also  the  thrill  of  war  itself.  He 
declared  that  "by  the  exactness  of  the  perspective  pre- 
served in  his  long  files  of  soldiers,  Caran  d'Ache  gives 
us  the  illusion  of  number  and  of  a  number  immense  and 
indefinite.  And  by  the  automatic  movement  which 
sets  all  his  troops  in  action  at  once,  he  gives  us  the 
illusion  of  a  single  soul,  of  a  communal  thought  ani- 
mating innumerable  bodies — and  thereby  he  evokes 
in  us  the  impression  of  measureless  power.  .  .  .  His 
silent  poem,  with  its  sliding  profiles  is,  I  think,  the 
only  epic  in  all  French  literature."  And  those  who  are 
famiHar  with  the  other  French  efforts  to  attain  to  lyric 
largeness,  and  who  have  had  also  the  imforgetable 
felicity  of  beholding  Caran  d' Ache's  marvelous  pro- 
jection of  the  Napoleonic  legend,  will  be  prepared  to 
admit  that  Lemaitre  did  not  overstate  the  case. 

314 


SHADOW-PANTOMIME 


III 

What  the  Franco-Russian  artist  had  done  was  to 
reveal  the  alluring  possibilities  placed  at  the  command 
of  the  shadow-pantomimist  by  the  ingenious  employ- 
ment of  perspective;  and  there  remained  only  one 
more  step  to  be  taken  for  the  final  development  of  the 
art  to  its  ultimate  capacity.  This  was  the  addition  of 
color;  and  this  step  was  taken  by  an  associate  of 
Caran  d'Ache  in  the  exhibitions  given  at  the  Chat  Noir 
— Henri  Riviere.  Color  could  be  added  in  two  ways. 
In  the  first  place,  the  outlines  of  lanterns  and  of  battle- 
flags  could  be  cut  out,  and  slips  of  appropriately  tinted 
paper  could  be  inserted  in  the  openings  so  that  the 
Hght  might  shine  thru.  This  relieved  the  monotony 
of  the  uniformity  of  the  sable  figures,  and  added  a  note 
of  amusing  gaiety.  But  this  was  an  innovation  of  very 
limited  scope;  and  it  could  have  been  earlier  utilized 
in  the  flat  figures  of  Lemercier  de  Neuville,  for  exam- 
ple, if  he  had  happened  to  think  of  it.  Far  wider  in 
its  artistic  possibilities  was  the  second  of  Riviere's  im- 
provements. For  the  ordinary  lamp  which  cast  a 
steady  glow  on  the  white  screen  whereon  the  profile 
figures  appeared,  he  substituted  a  magic  lantern,  the 
painted  sUdes  of  which  enabled  him  to  supply  an  ap- 
propriately colored  background.  Then  he  went  further 
and  employed  two  magic  lanterns,  superimposed;  and 
these  enabled  him  to  get  the  effect  of  "dissolving 
views"  whereby  he  could  vary  his  backgroimd  at  will. 

315 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

The  immediate  result  of  this  ingenious  improvement 
was  that  the  artist  could  bestow  upon  his  shadow- 
pantomime  not  a  little  of  the  richness  of  color  which 
delights  our  eyes  in  the  stained  glass  of  medieval 
cathedrals. 

Riviere  was  not  only  an  inventor,  he  was  also  an 
artist,  richly  gifted  with  imagination;  and  his  imagina- 
tion suggested  to  him  at  once  the  three  or  four  themes 
best  fitted  for  treatment  by  his  novel  apparatus.  One 
of  these  was  the  'Wandering  Jew';  another  was  the 
'Prodigal  Son';  and  a  third  was  the  'Temptation  of 
Saint  Anthony' — all  legends  of  combined  dramatic  and 
pictorial  appeal.  Yet  the  most  effective  of  all  the  ex- 
periments in  this  new  form  was  due  not  to  Riviere 
himself  but  to  the  collaboration  of  two  of  his  disciples, 
M.  Fragerolle  and  M.  Vignola.  This  was  the  '  Sphinx,' 
in  which  the  artists  most  adroitly  combined  all  the  ad- 
vantages of  the  original  flat  profiles,  and  of  the  long 
files  of  figures  in  perspective  such  as  Caran  d'Ache  had 
employed,  with  varied  backgrounds  due  to  the  aid  of 
the  magic  lantern  first  utilized  by  Riviere.  Of  all 
human  monuments  no  one  has  had  so  marvelous  a 
series  of  spectacles  pass  before  its  sightless  eyes  as  the 
Sphinx,  reclining  impassive  at  the  edge  of  the  desert, 
and  at  the  foot  of  the  pyramids.  Race  after  race  has 
descended  into  the  valley  of  the  Nile,  and  lingered  for  a 
little  space,  a  few  centuries  more  or  less,  and  departed 
at  last.  Conqueror  after  conqueror  has  come  and  gone 
again;  and  the  Sphinx  has  kept  its  inscrutable  smile. 

M.  Fragerolle  composed  the  music  and  the  words  of 

316 


W    a 

c    -Sf 
•-    > 


SHADOW-PANTOMIME 

the  stately  chants  which  accompanied  the  exhibition 
of  the  figures  passing  before  the  backgrounds,  due  to 
the  pencil  and  the  palette  of  M.  Vignola.  By  the  aid 
of  the  magic  lantern  the  gigantic  visage  of  the  lion 
with  a  woman's  head  towers  aloft,  permanent  and  im- 
mutable, while  the  joyous  procession  of  Egyptian 
dancers  and  soldiers  and  priests  celebrates  the  com- 
pletion of  the  statue  itself.  Then  we  are  witnesses 
of  the  fierce  invasion  of  the  Assyrians,  with  the  charge 
of  their  chariots  and  their  horsemen;  and  we  behold 
the  rout  of  the  natives  while  their  capital  bums  in  the 
distance.  Next  we  gaze  at  the  departure  of  the  Jews, 
led  by  Moses  and  laden  with  the  spoils  of  the  Egyp- 
tians. After  the  Hebrews  have  gone,  Sesostris  appears, 
to  be  greeted  by  a  glad  outpouring  of  the  populace. 
Yet  soon  the  Persians  descend  on  Egypt,  with  their 
castellated  elephants  and  their  immense  hordes  of 
fighting  men.  Still  the  Sphinx  looks  down,  immova- 
ble and  implacable;  and  the  Greeks  in  turn  take  the 
valley  of  the  Nile  for  their  own.  One  of  their  daugh- 
ters, Cleopatra,  floats  past  in  her  galley  by  night;  and 
in  the  morning  she  extends  her  hospitahty  to  the 
Roman,  Caesar  or  Antony.  And  while  the  Latins  are 
the  rulers  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  the  Virgia  and  her  Son 
with  the  patient  ass  that  bears  a  precious  burden, 
skirt  the  sandy  waste,  and  go  on  their  way  to  the  Holy 
Land,  leaving  the  Sphinx  behind  them  as  they  journey 
forward  in  the  green  moonlight.  After  long  centuries 
the  Arabs  break  in  with  their  brilliant  bands  of  horse- 
men, and  a  little  later  the  Crusaders  come  to  give  them 

317 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

battle.  More  long  centuries  elapse  and  suddenly 
Napoleon  emerges  at  the  head  of  the  troops  of  the 
French  Republic.  Then  we  have  the  Egypt  of  to-day, 
with  the  British  soldiers  parading  before  the  feet  of 
the  Sphinx;  and  finally  the  recumbent  statue  appears 
to  us  once  more  and  for  the  last  time,  when  the  light 
of  the  sun  is  going  out,  and  the  world  is  emptied  of  its 
population  again,  and  the  ice  is  settling  down  on  the 
Sphinx,  alone  amid  freezing  desolation.  And  this  last 
vision  is  projected  by  the  magic  lantern,  without  the 
aid  of  any  profile  figures,  since  man  has  ceased  to  be. 

Here  we  have  a  true  epic  poem,  simple  yet  grandiose, 
and  possible  only  to  the  improved  shadow-pantomime 
of  France  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century — even 
if  this  art  is  only  a  logical  evolution  from  the  gallanty- 
show  of  S^raphin.  "This  humble  black  profile,"  said 
Jules  Lemaitre,  "which  had  been  thought  fit  at  best 
of  a  few  comic  effects  to  amuse  little  children  only, 
has  been  diversified  and  colored;  it  has  been  made 
beautiful,  serious,  tragic;  by  the  multiplication  of  the 
devices  it  has  been  rendered  capable  of  giving  us  a 
powerful  impression  of  collective  life,  and  the  artists 
who  have  developed  it  have  known  how  to  make  it 
translate  to  our  eyes  the  great  spectacles  of  history 
and  the  sweeping  movement  of  multitudes." 

(1912.) 


818 


XIX 
THE  PROBLEM  OF  DRAMATIC  CRITICISM 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  DRAMATIC  CRITICISM 


It  is  now  no  longer  in  dispute  that  there  has  been  in 
the  past  score  or  two  of  years  a  striking  revival  of  the 
drama  in  the  English  language,  and  that  there  are 
to-day  British  and  American  playwrights  who  write 
plays  which  are  worth  while — splays  which  are  both 
actable  and  readable — splays  which  often  deserve  and 
which  sometimes  even  demand  serious  critical  con- 
sideration. This  revival  has  necessarily  resulted  in 
calling  attention  to  the  present  condition  of  dramatic 
criticism  in  Great  Britain  and  in  the  United  States. 
In  a  period  of  dramatic  productivity,  dramatic  criti- 
cism has  an  indisputable  function  and  is  charged  with 
an  imdeniable  duty,  both  to  the  aspiring  play-makers 
and  to  the  main  body  of  the  playgoing  public.  We 
cannot  help  asking  ourselves  whether  our  dramatic 
critics  rightly  apprehend  their  fxmction  and  whether 
they  properly  discharge  their  duty;  and  to  these  press- 
ing questions  the  most  confhcting  answers  are  returned. 
Some  there  are  who  insist  that  it  is  hopeless  to  ex- 
pect the  desired  outflowering  of  dramatic  literature  in 
our  language  to  take  place  so  long  as  our  dramatic 
criticism  is  as  inadequate,  as  incompetent,  and  as  im- 

321 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

satisfactory  as  they  declare  it  to  be.  Others  there  are 
who  take  a  more  tolerant  view,  holding  the  public  itself 
to  be  at  fault  for  the  existing  state  of  things,  and  who, 
therefore,  believe  that  we  are  now  getting  dramatic 
criticism  quite  as  good  as  we  deserve.  Few  there  are 
who  venture  to  deny  that  there  is  room  for  improve- 
ment— altho  no  two  of  these  agree  in  their  suggestions 
for  bringing  about  a  bettering  of  present  conditions. 
In  the  multitude  of  these  counsellors  there  is  darkness 
and  confusion. 

Perhaps  there  is  a  dim  possibility  of  dissipating  a 
little  of  this  dark  confusion  by  an  analysis  of  the  exact 
content;  which  we  discover  in  the  term  "  dramatic  criti- 
cism," and  then  by  a  further  inquiry  as  to  whether  our 
customary  use  of  the  term  is  not  misleading.  "Dra- 
matic criticism"  to  most  of  us  connotes  the  newspaper 
reviewing  of  the  nightly  spectacles  in  our  theaters. 
Plainly  this  was  the  meaning  of  the  term  in  the  mind 
of  Mr.  Howells  years  ago,  when  he  declared  that  "our 
dramatic  criticism  is  probably  the  most  remarkable 
apparatus  of  our  civilization"  and  that  it  "surpasses 
that  of  other  countries  as  much  as  our  fire-department. 
A  perfectly  equipped  engine  stands  in  every  newspaper 
office,  with  the  steam  always  up,  which  can  be  manned 
in  nine  seconds  and  rushed  to  the  first  theater  where 
there  is  the  slightest  danger  of  drama  within  five  min- 
utes; and  the  combined  efforts  of  these  tremendous 
machines  can  pour  a  concentrated  deluge  of  cold  water 
upon  a  play  which  will  put  out  anything  of  the  kind 
at  once." 

322 


DRAMATIC    CRITICISM 

There  is  no  denying  that  this  use  of  the  term  by  Mr. 
Howells  is  supported  by  custom.  Yet  it  is  distinctly 
unfortunate,  for  if  the  newspaper  comment  upon  the 
novelties  of  the  stage  is  to  be  accepted  as  "dramatic 
criticisni/'  then  what  term  have  we  left  to  describe 
the  more  piercing  and  the  more  comprehensive  dis- 
cussion of  the  first  principles  of  the  art  of  play-making 
which  we  find  in  Francisque  Sarcey  and  in  George 
Henry  Lewes,  not  to  go  back  to  Lessing  and  to  Aris- 
totle ?  It  is  equally  unfortunate  that  there  is  an  equiva- 
lent inaccuracy  in  bestowing  the  title  of  "Hterary  criti- 
cism" upon  the  newspaper  comments  upon  the  current 
books,  for  if  this  joumahstic  summarizing  is  to  be 
accepted  as  "literary  criticism,"  then  what  are  we  to 
call  the  exquisite  evaluation  of  favorite  authors  which 
we  find  in  Matthew  Arnold  and  Sainte-Beuve  ? 

Of  course,  it  is  always  idle  to  protest  against  the 
popular  use  or  misuse  of  words  and  terms  and  phrases. 
The  people  as  a  whole  own  the  language,  and  have  a 
right  to  make  it  over  and  to  modify  the  original  mean- 
ing of  words.  If  popular  usage  chooses  not  to  distin- 
guish between  two  very  different  things,  and  to  call 
both  of  them  "  dramatic  criticism,"  there  is  no  redress, 
and  yet  it  is  impossible  to  discuss  the  problem  of  dra- 
matic criticism  except  by  trying  to  separate  the  two 
things  thus  confounded.  Therefore,  for  the  purpose 
of  this  inquiry  only,  and  without  any  hope  of  changing 
the  accepted  usage,  I  make  bold  to  suggest  that  "play- 
reviewing"  might  be  employed  to  describe  the  notices 
written  in  the  office  of  a  newspaper,  notices  necessarily 

323 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

prepared  under  pressure  and  under  strict  limitations 
of  time  and  space. 

These  newspaper  notices  are  sometimes  careless, 
they  are  sometimes  perf imctory,  and  they  are  sometimes 
cruel;  and  occasionally  they  are  careful,  conscientious, 
and  clever,  done  with  a  dexterity  worthy  of  high  praise 
when  we  consider  all  the  conditions  imder  which  it  is 
displayed.  But  even  at  its  best,  play-reviewing  can- 
not attain  to  the  level  of  true  dramatic  criticism,  more 
leisurely  in  its  composition,  larger  in  its  scope,  and  more 
discriminating  in  its  choice  of  topic.  The  play-review- 
ing of  the  daily  journal  is  akin  in  aim  to  the  book- 
reviewing,  which  has  for  its  purpose  the  swift  considera- 
tion of  the  volume  in  vogue  at  the  moment.  In  our 
morning  and  evening  papers  the  book-reviewing  and 
the  play-reviewing  are  both  of  them  necessarily  up-to- 
date,  in  fact,  up-to-the-last-minute.  To  be  contem- 
poraneous, instantly  and  necessarily  and  inexorably, 
is  their  special  quality  and  their  immediate  purpose; 
it  is  the  reason  for  their  existence  and  the  excuse  for 
their  being. 

n 

Here  it  may  be  well  to  cite  again  the  oft-quoted  con- 
fession of  the  late  Jules  Lemaltre,  writer  of  volume  after 
volume  in  which  he  discussed  the  leading  men  of  let- 
ters of  his  own  time  and  of  his  own  country:  "Criti- 
cism of  our  contemporaries  is  not  criticism — it  is  con- 
versation."   Now,  conversation  may  be  a  very  good 

324 


DRAMATIC    CRITICISM 

thing;  indeed,  when  it  is  as  clear  and  as  sparkling  as 
was  Lemaitre'S;  it  is  an  excellent  thing;  yet  he  was 
right  in  admitting  that  it  is  not  criticism,  since  it  could 
not  but  lack  the  touchstone  of  time,  the  perspective  of 
distance,  the  assured  application  of  the  eternal  stand- 
ards. And  play-reviewing,  like  book-reviewing,  can- 
not be  anything  but  conversation  about  our  contem- 
poraries. It  may  descend  to  chaff-like  chatter  about 
the  writers  of  the  hour  and  to  empty  gossip  about 
their  sayings  and  doings;  or  it  may  have  the  sterner 
merits  of  brilliant  conversation  at  its  best.  But  it  is 
not  really  criticism  in  the  finer  sense  of  the  word;  it 
cannot  be;  and  one  may  go  further  and  say  that  it 
ought  not  to  be,  since  true  criticism  is  more  or  less  out 
of  place  in  a  newspaper — ^because  the  direct  object  of 
a  newspaper  is  to  present  the  news,  with  only  the  swift- 
est of  commentaries  thereon. 

The  final  distinction  between  hterature  and  journal- 
ism is  to  be  sought  in  their  diverging  and  irreconcilable 
objects.  The  desire  of  the  former  is  for  permanence, 
and  the  aim  of  the  latter  is  the  immediate  impression. 
When  literature  triumphs  it  is  for  all  time — ^more  or 
less.  When  joumahsm  most  completely  achieves  its 
purpose  its  success  is  temporary,  to  be  retained  only 
by  iteration  and  reiteration,  since  it  has  for  its  target 
the  events  of  the  fleeting  moment.  If  we  admit  this 
distinction  between  journalism  and  literature,  we  have 
no  difficulty  in  discovering  journalism  in  many  places 
other  than  the  daily  and  weekly  papers;  very  properly 
it  fills  the  most  of  the  space  in  the  monthly  magazines, 

325 


A   BOOK   ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

and  even  in  the  quarterly  reviews;  and  it  abounds  in 
our  book-stores,  since  only  a  small  proportion  of  the 
volumes  which  pour  from  the  press  every  year  possess 
the  combined  substance  and  style,  the  solidity  of  mat- 
ter and  the  delightfulness  of  manner  which  lift  mere 
writing  up  to  the  loftier  level  of  literature. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  may  find  literature  of  inex- 
pugnable quality,  not  only  in  the  magazines,  but  also 
now  and  again  in  the  newspapers.  Drake's  '  American 
Flag'  and  Kipling's  'Recessional'  appeared  in  daily 
journals,  and  so  did  the  literary  criticism  of  Sainte- 
Beuve  and  the  dramatic  criticism  of  Lessing  and  of 
Lemaitre.  But  these  were  but  happy  accidents,  and 
the  great  newspaper  editor  has  rarely  striven  to  make 
his  journal  a  persistent  vehicle  for  the  publication  of 
literature.  He  feels  that  this  is  foreign  to  his  main 
purpose,  and  he  is  content  when  his  editorial  articles, 
and  his  news  stories  are  vigorous  and  picturesque — 
clean,  clear,  and  cogent  in  their  English.  He  knows, 
better  than  any  one  else,  that  it  is  not  by  its  external 
literary  merits  that  newspaper-writing  is  to  be  judged. 
What  he  wants  above  all  else  is  the  news,  all  the  news, 
and  nothing  but  the  news — accompanied,  of  course, 
by  the  obligatory  comment  this  news  may  deserve. 
He  needs  editorial  writers,  reporters,  and  correspon- 
dents who  are  newspaper  men,  and  not  men  of  letters, 
except  in  so  far  as  these  men  of  letters  may  have  ac- 
cepted the  special  conditions  of  newspaper  work. 

Now,  criticism,  whether  literary  or  dramatic,  is  a 
department  of  literature,  dealing  with  the  permanent, 

326 


DRAMATIC    CRITICISM 

and  having  little  to  do  with  the  temporary.  It  de- 
mands qualifications  very  rarely  united — ^insight,  equip- 
ment, disinterestedness,  and  sympathy.  So  far  from 
being  easy,  criticism  is  quite  as  difiicult  as  creation — 
more  difficult,  indeed,  if  we  may  judge  by  its  greater 
rarity.  In  a  superbly  creative  period  there  are  some- 
times three  or  foiu*  distinguished  poets,  friendly  rivals, 
almost  contemporaneous;  and  even  at  such  a  time 
there  is  rarely  more  than  one  critic  worthy  to  be  com- 
panioned with  them,  i^schylus  and  Sophocles  and 
Euripides  followed  one  after  the  other;  and  in  time  the 
sole  Aristotle  came  forward  as  their  critic.  Comeille 
and  Moliere  and  Racine  labored  side  by  side,  and  only 
Boileau  was  competent  to  interpret  and  to  encourage 
them. 

When  it  attains  to  the  serene  plane  of  Aristotle  and 
Boileau,  of  Lessing  and  Sainte-Beuve,  criticism  is 
actually  creation.  "The  critical  faculty  as  applied  to 
the  masterpieces  of  literature,  and  still  more  the  critical 
faculty  as  applied  to  the  art  of  literature  itself,  is  akin 
to  the  creative  faculty  of  the  artist,"  so  Professor  Mac- 
kail  has  told  us.  "It  does  not  deal  with  letters  as 
something  detached  from  life,  but  as  the  form  or  sub- 
stance in  which  life  is  intelligibly  presented.  Its  in- 
terpretation is  also  creation."  But  the  criticism  of 
dramatic  Hterature  which  is  also  creation,  is  possible 
only  when  the  critical  faculty  is  applied  to  the  master- 
pieces of  dramatic  Hterature;  and  nobody  knows 
better  than  the  play-reviewer  that  masterpieces  of 
dramatic  Hterature  do  not  present   themselves  fre- 

327 


A   BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

quently  and  that  they  cannot  be  acclaimed  as  master- 
pieces imtil  they  have  stood  the  test  of  time.  And  this 
is  why  a  critic-creator  would  be  a  little  out  of  place 
on  the  staff  of  a  newspaper,  daily  or  weekly,  whether 
he  was  assigned  to  deal  with  the  drama  or  with  hter- 
ature  at  large. 

m 

The  necessary  task  of  the  book-reviewer  or  of  the 
play-reviewer,  is  not  criticism  of  the  creative  kind, 
since  for  that  he  is  always  likely  to  lack  material.  His 
task  is  humbler  even  if  it  is  honorable;  it  is  to  report 
upon  the  novelties  of  the  day,  and  to  inform  the  read- 
ers of  the  newspaper  as  to  the  nature  and  the  merits 
of  these  novelties.  His  work  is  essentially  reporting, 
even  if  it  is  reporting  of  a  special  kind,  calling  for  special 
qualifications.  The  connection  of  the  drama  with  the 
show  business  is  intimate,  and  it  always  has  been.  In 
the  long  history  of  the  theater  there  is  no  period  with- 
out its  successful  pieces,  the  appeal  of  which  was  mainly 
sensuous — to  the  eye  and  to  the  ear,  rather  than  to  the 
emotions  and  to  the  intellect.  While  the  drama  is  an 
art,  and  perhaps  the  loftiest  of  the  arts,  the  show 
business  is  a  trade.  This  is  no  new  thing — altho 
ignorant  idealists  often  declare  it  so  to  be,  and  altho 
it  may  make  itself  a  little  more  obvious  at  one  time 
than  at  another.  What  confronts  us  is  the  condition 
of  things  as  they  are,  not  the  theory  of  things  as  they 
might  be. 

328 


DRAMATIC    CRITICISM 

There  would  be  occupation  for  a  dramatic  critic, 
who  was  also  a  creator,  only  if  our  theaters  were  pre- 
senting in  rapid  succession  a  sequence  of  masterpieces, 
tragedies  of  austere  power,  comedies  of  searching  satire, 
social  dramas  of  piercing  suggestion.  But  this  is  not 
the  case  now  here  in  the  United  States  in  the  twentieth 
century;  and  it  never  has  been  the  case  anywhere  or 
anywhen,  not  even  in  Weimar  when  Goethe  dominated 
the  ducal  theater.  In  our  playhouses  we  are  proffered 
our  choice  of  Shakspere  and  Ibsen,  Pinero  and  Haupt- 
mann,  Henry  Arthur  Jones  and  Augustus  Thomas, 
Barrie  and  Gillette,  Sardou  and  George  M.  Cohan;  and 
at  the  same  time  we  are  invited  to  choose  between 
'Trilby'  and  the  'Celebrated  Case,'  melodramas  and 
farces,  summer  song-shows  and  ultra-contemporary 
reviews,  alleged  comic  operas  and  terpsichorean  spec- 
tacles. Most  of  these  latter  exhibitions  do  not  de- 
mand or  deserve  criticism  of  any  kind;  but  they  need 
to  be  reported  upon  like  any  other  item  in  the  news  of 
the  day. 

If  this  is  the  case,  it  might  as  well  be  recognized 
frankly.  There  is  always  advantage  in  seeing  things 
as  they  are,  in  fronting  the  facts  and  in  looking  them 
squarely  in  the  face.  Sooner  or  later  some  one  of 
those  who  are  in  charge  of  our  metropolitan  newspapers 
will  perceive  the  possibility  of  a  change  of  method. 
He  will  charge  one  of  his  staff  with  the  supervision  of 
the  theatrical  news,  the  announcements  of  new  plays, 
and  the  personal  gossip  about  the  players;  and  he  will 
authorize  this  editor  to  send  competent  reporters  to 

329 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

all  first  perfonnances,  directed  to  report  upon  them  as 
they  would  report  upon  any  other  event  of  immediate 
interest.  He  would  warn  these  reporters  that  they 
were  strictly  to  consider  themselves  as  reporters,  and 
that  they  were,  therefore,  to  refrain  from  explicit 
criticism.  He  would  so  select  his  men  that  a  melo- 
drama should  be  dealt  with  by  a  reporter  who  liked  a 
good  melodrama,  and  that  a  summer  song-show  should 
be  described  by  a  reporter  who  could  find  pleasure  in 
inoffensive  and  amusing  spectacle.  If  this  policy 
should  be  adopted,  and  announced  clearly  and  em- 
phatically, probably  most  of  the  occasions  for  quarrel 
between  managers  and  editors  would  disappear;  and 
the  immense  majority  of  the  readers  of  the  daily  paper 
would  be  supplied  with  exactly  the  information  they 
would  prefer. 

Then,  for  the  benefit  of  the  smaller  number  who  are 
really  interested  in  the  drama  as  a  serious  art,  the 
editor-in-chief  might  avail  himself  of  the  fact  that  the 
Sunday  issue,  while  it  is  still  a  newspaper  containing 
the  news  of  the  preceding  twenty-four  hours,  is  also 
a  magazine,  to  be  read  in  more  leisurely  fashion,  and 
therefore  at  liberty  to  treat  timely  topics  with  a  larger 
freedom.  Here  space  could  be  found  for  genuine  dra- 
matic criticism  by  the  most  competent  expert  available. 
This  dramatic  critic  should  have  nothing  whatever  to 
do  with  the  news  of  the  theaters,  or  with  the  first- 
night  play-reviewing.  He  should  not  be  tired  and 
bored  by  having  to  go  to  the  theater  half  a  dozen  times 
a  week,  and  by  being  forced  to  analyze  plays  which  do 

330 


DRAMATIC    CRITICISM 

not  reward  analysis.  He  would  be  expected  to  select 
out  of  the  current  performances  that  one  which  prom- 
ised to  be  most  worthy  of  careful  consideration,  and 
he  would  feel  himself  free  to  discuss  this  at  such  length 
as  it  might  seem  to  him  to  deserve.  To  him  also  should 
be  intrusted  the  more  significant  of  the  new  books 
upon  the  history  of  the  theater,  and  upon  the  art  of 
the  drama.  In  the  summer  (and  also  whenever  at 
any  other  season  there  might  be  a  dearth  of  inspiring 
topics),  this  dramatic  critic  would  not  be  expected  to 
contribute,  since  he  should  never  be  called  upon  to 
make  bricks  without  straw. 

Even  in  New  York  this  method  is  not  as  new  as  it 
may  seem,  and  more  than  one  metropolitan  daily  has 
approximated  to  it,  altho  no  one  of  them  has  com- 
pletely detached  the  dramatic  critic  from  the  play- 
reviewer  and  from  the  supervisor  of  theatrical  gossip. 
And  it  has  long  been  adopted  in  certain  of  the  Paris 
newspapers.  In  the  Temps,  for  example,  when  Sarcey 
was  its  dramatic  critic,  there  was  a  daily  column  of 
theatrical  announcements  and  of  brief  reports  upon 
first-night  performances;  and  with  this  department  of 
the  news  of  the  theaters  Sarcey  had  nothing  to  do, 
and  for  it  he  had  no  responsibility.  Then  in  the 
ample  space  specially  reserved  for  him  in  the  issue  of 
every  Sunday  afternoon,  he  dealt  with  the  dramatic 
themes  that  seemed  to  him  worth  while.  If  a  play 
appeared  to  demand  prolonged  study,  he  might  go  to 
see  it  two,  or  even  three  times,  before  he  undertook  to 
formulate  his  opinion;  and  on  occasion  he  would  carry 

331 


A    BOOK    ABOUT    THE    THEATER 

over  his  detailed  discussion  of  a  very  important  drama 
into  the  article  of  the  following  Sunday.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  no  recent  play  seemed  to  him  to  deserve  his 
continued  attention,  he  would  devote  himself  to  one 
of  the  recent  books  about  the  theater  or  to  a  detailed 
discussion  of  the  proper  interpretation  of  one  of  the 
classics  of  the  French  drama  kept  constantly  in  the 
repertory  of  the  Com^die-Frangaise. 

IV 

The  adoption  of  this  method  would  reheve  the  dra- 
matic critic  from  one  of  his  existing  disadvantages; 
he  would  be  released  from  criticising  the  pieces  which 
are  beneath  criticism.  The  literary  critic,  and  even 
the  ordinary  book-reviewer,  never  spends  his  time  in 
considering  dime  novels — whereas  the  dramatic  critic 
is  now  called  upon  to  waste  many  evenings  in  beholding 
a  play  which  is  only  the  theatrical  equivalent  of  a  dime 
novel.  The  immediate  result  of  this  futile  and  fa- 
tiguing expenditure  of  energy  is  likely  to  be  discouraging 
and  even  enervating.  If  the  dramatic  critic  could  be 
totally  relieved  from  all  contact  with  the  show  business 
when  the  show  business  has  only  a  casual  connection 
with  the  drama,  it  would  tend  to  keep  him  fit  for  his 
essential  task.  Under  the  present  conditions  it  is  no 
wonder  that  the  theatrical  reviewer  wearies  of  his  task 
and  loses  the  gusto  and  the  zest  without  which  all 
--work  tends  to  degenerate  into  the  perfunctory  and  the 
mechanical. 

332 


DRAMATIC    CRITICISM 

We  need  not  fear  that  the  first-night  reporting  would 
be  ill  done  if  competent  reporters  were  instructed  that 
they  were  not  to  consider  themselves  as  critics,  and  that 
it  was  their  sole  duty  to  report,  as  they  would  report 
anything  else,  conscientiously  and  accurately.  The 
difficulty  would  not  be  in  finding  reporters  able  to  dis- 
charge this  duty,  it  would  be  in  the  discovery  of  dra- 
matic critics  possessing  the  fourfold  qualifications  of 
insight,  equipment,  disinterestedness,  and  sympathy, 
which  every  critic  must  be  endowed  with  whatever  the 
art  he  undertakes  to  anaylze.  And  the  difficulty  would 
be  increased  by  the  fact  that  the  dramatic  critic  needs 
an  understanding  of  three  different  arts,  the  art  of 
acting,  the  art  of  literature,  and  the  art  of  the  drama 
— of  play-making  as  distinct  from  hterature. 

It  would  be  idle  to  hope  that  even  if  this  method 
were  adopted  we  should  soon  be  able  to  develop  in  the 
United  States  and  in  Great  Britain  a  group  of  dra- 
matic critics  of  the  capacity  and  the  quality  of  Les- 
sing  and  Sarcey,  of  George  Henry  Lewes  and  William 
Archer.  Yet  it  is  solely  by  the  adoption  of  this  method 
that  we  can  hope  to  provide  the  opportunity  for  the 
appearance  of  the  true  dramatic  critic,  who  can  fit 
himself  for  his  finer  work  only  by  being  set  free  from 
the  necessity  of  doing  work  quite  unworthy  of  him, 
altho  necessary  to  the  newspaper  itself.  And  the  de- 
velopment of  a  group  of  dramatic  critics  of  a  higher 
type  than  can  be  found  to-day — except  possibly  in  a 
scant  half-dozen  daiHes  and  weeklies  and  monthlies — 
is  a  condition  precedent  to  the  development  of  our 

333 


A    BOOK    ABOUT   THE    THEATER 

drama.  Of  course,  these  dramatic  critics,  whatever 
their  endowment,  could  give  little  help  directly  to  the 
dramatic  authors,  since  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that 
the  critic  is  capable  of  counselling  the  author,  or  that 
he  is  charged  with  any  such  duty.  Where  the  critic 
can  help  is  by  disseminating  knowledge  about  the  dra- 
matic art,  and  by  raising  the  standard  of  appreciation 
in  the  public  at  large — that  public  which  even  the 
mightiest  dramatist  has  to  please  or  else  to  fail  of  his 
purpose. 

(1915.) 


334 


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